After numerous high-profile incidents of violence surfaced on Facebook in the form of videos, the company announced it will add 3000 new Moderators. Their job will be to closely monitor reports of violations and respond quickly.
Even though the website has been involved in such incidents, the number of people using Facebook every month has not dropped. In fact, it has only grown.
Violent videos
Mark Zuckerberg made a public announcement today in which he addressed the problem of violent video footage being uploaded to Facebook. "If we're going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly. We're working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner -- whether that's responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down," Zuckerberg wrote. So far, Facebook moderators have been slow in taking down videos which violated community guidelines.
Last month, a video was uploaded showing a deadly shooting in Cleveland. Even though it was reported by users numerous times, it stayed on the website for hours.
Afterward, the social media website apologized but later that month, the same issue arose. In Thailand, a 20-year-old man had livestreamed himself killing his 11-month-old daughter. The videos remained on the website for almost 24 hours until they were taken down. Users who witnessed the livestream alerted the police who were too late to save the 11-month-old or her father, who had committed suicide.
A spokesperson for Facebook had said: "This is an appalling incident and our hearts go out to the family of the victim. There is absolutely no place for content of this kind on Facebook and it has now been removed." Now, Facebook is looking to expand its community operations team with another 3000 people, adding to the existing 4500.
Zuckerberg's statement did not specify whether moderation will be outsourced to workers around the world, only that the additional people will work "to review the millions of reports we get every week and improve the process for doing it quickly."
Popularity only grows
Facebook has also released its first quarter earnings, revealing that they brought in a little over $8 billion in revenue. This is a 49 percent increase since the first quarter of 2016. The number of monthly active users has also grown to a staggering 1.94 billion, which means that a quarter of the world's population now uses Facebook. The company's earnings go to research and development, as well as the hiring of more employees.