Facebook plans to have a total of 7,500 employees reviewing complaints about videos, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped short of promising to actively monitor live streams
Mark Zuckerberg at this year’s F8 developer conference in San Jose, California.
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that in response to a spate of violent incidents broadcast live on the social media platform, the company will add thousands of new staff who will monitor live videos.
« Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen people hurting themselves and others on Facebook — either live or in video posted later, » Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. « It’s heartbreaking, and I’ve been reflecting on how we can do better for our community. »
In a statement, Facebook said the graphic shooting by a Cleveland man posted to Facebook « goes against our policies and everything we stand for. »…
He wrote that the company will add 3,000 people to its community operations team, which reviews videos reported by Facebook users. The team currently employs 4,500 people, according to Zuckerberg.
« These reviewers will also help us get better at removing things we don’t allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation, » Zuckerberg wrote. « And we’ll keep working with local community groups and law enforcement who are in the best position to help someone if they need it — either because they’re about to harm themselves, or because they’re in danger from someone else. »
He added that the company is building tools to make it simpler to report videos to Facebook staff.
The announcement comes less than a month after law enforcement fanned out across five states in a massive manhunt for a man who uploaded to Facebook a video that appeared to show him shooting and killing an innocent man .
The site first began to tweak its video monitoring policies in July 2016, after a Minnesota man, Philando Castile, was filmed by his girlfriend as he died after being shot by a police officer during a traffic stop. Since then, similarly gruesome videos have appeared on the platform in increasing numbers.
Zuckerberg’s announcement did not address one frequent criticism of the company’s video monitoring — that, unlike YouTube, Facebook does not proactively monitor posts unless they’ve been flagged by users, potentially slowing the process by which the company can respond to videos in violation of the site’s rules.
Still, Zuckerberg wrote that the company has had at least one success in preventing a tragedy.
« Just last week, we got a report that someone on Live was considering suicide. We immediately reached out to law enforcement, and they were able to prevent him from hurting himself. In other cases, we weren’t so fortunate, » Zuckerberg wrote.
Got news tips about digital privacy, social media or online marketing? Email this reporter at KatesG@cbsnews.com, or via his encrypted address, grahamkates@protonmail.com (PGP fingerprint: 4b97 34aa d2c0 a35d a498 3cea 6279 22f8 eee8 4e24) .
Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBSNews.com.
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