Facebook Set to Hire 20,000 Guards to Police Contents, Zuckerberg Tells Senate Committees

Segun Atanda with Yahoo News/

Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg announced today that he would employ 20000 people this year to focus on security and review content on the social media platform. .

Zuckerberg disclosed his plan while testifying before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees to discuss Facebook’s (FB) role in the latest Cambridge Analytica scandal, Russian activity in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and users’ data and privacy in general.

“If you and other social media companies don’t get your act together, none of us are going to have privacy anymore, ” Sen. Bill Nelson, the senior senator from Florida, remarked to Mark Zuckerberg before the Facebook chief executives remarks.

At the start, Zuckerberg stuck closely to his prepared remarks, which were released Monday.

“Just recently, we’ve seen the #metoo movement and the March for Our Lives, organized, at least in part, on Facebook. After Hurricane Harvey, people raised more than $20 million for relief,” Zuckerberg said in his prepared opening remarks. “And more than 70 million small businesses now use Facebook to grow and create jobs. But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

During the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees’ Q&A, Zuckerberg emphasized his goal of informing users about the different ways in which in their data could be used. He also discussed the challenges of balancing being explicit with privacy policies with making those same policies simple and accessible enough for users to understand.

Zuckerberg also discussed how much Facebook has evolved since he started the social network from his Havard dorm room in 2004. Back then, when Facebook was an exclusive, college-only social network, policing content was a matter of having Facebook users flag content to be taken down. Flash-forward 14 years, however, and Zuckerberg emphasized such methods simply aren’t enough.

“What I think we’ve learned now … is that we need to take a proactive broader role,” Zuckerberg explained. We need to take a more proactive role in policing the ecosystem and making sure members of the community are using the ecosystem in a way that is healthy.”

To wit, Zuckerberg explained that some of the measures Facebook is taking to thwart future activity from bad actors. The social network is using artificial intelligence, for instance, to identify classes of bad activity and flag it to Facebook, and by the end of 2018, Facebook will employ over 20,000 people focused on security and reviewing content.

“Some problems lend themselves more easily to AI solutions than others,” said Zuckerberg. “99% of the terrorist content on our site — our systems flag before humans see it.”

During the hearing, Zuckerberg noted that “there will always be a version of Facebook that is free,” but noted that there may be a time where users have to pay if they don’t want to see ads.  He noted that the company found that people just don’t like relevant ads, not ads in general. “While there’s some discomfort, people would rather have us show relevant content than not,” he added.

Zuckerberg also weathered some critical comments, as well. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the junior United States senator from Washington, made some pointed remarks that questioned Zuckerberg’s character.

“I believe you have the talent,” Sen. Cantwell explained. “I want to know if you have the will to help us.”

Zuckerberg’s two-day appearance follows a number of media appearances and press calls where he apologized and admitted mistakes in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved the improper release of personal information of as many as 87 million users to the political consultant. The admission contrasts his previous response to the manipulation of Facebook’s platform for political purposes during the 2016 elections. At that time, Zuckerberg denied that Facebook was helping to deliver “fake news.” Now that Zuckerberg is addressing that there is a problem and even outlined steps that Facebook is taking to protect user data, the company may be able to make it through this rough patch.

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