Facebook to add 1,000 staff to its operations in Ireland this year to ensure online safety

Facebook will be adding 1,000 more staff in Ireland this year as it ramps up on more staff to focus on making its platform’s safer, the tech giant said on Monday.

The additional 25% increase in manpower – Facebook currently employs 4,000 staff across Ireland – will be looking to fill positions in engineering, legal, safety, policy, and marketing and sales.

The employees will be working to help ‘keep people safe’ and ‘prevent abuse’ on the platform, said the company’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

From fake news, to data breach: Facebook is working hard to save itself

In 2016, personal data of tens of millions of users were breached, involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Facebook was accused of misusing users’ personal information after reports found that Cambridge Analytica had tapped tens of millions of Facebook users without their explicit consent.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) subsequently launched an investigation probe on Facebook’s data practices and it is said that the FTC is reportedly considering imposing a ‘record-setting fine’ against the firm.

The Irish Data Protection Commission is also investigating on Facebook after the California-based firm admitted it may have exposed unposted photos from up to 6.8 million users due to a ‘bug’.

The social media mammoth faces other issues such as the circulation of fake news and a lack of rigid censorship, sometimes providing as a platform for anti-government speeches.

Clarifying on the issues the company is facing, Ms Sandberg admitted that the firm did not do enough to really anticipate those problems. ‘When you connect this many people around the world there are real risks … We're not the same company we were even a few years ago, and that's something we need to prove,’ she said.