Mark Zuckerberg promises 3,000 more Facebook employees in Europe
Facebook is adding workers in 12 European cities to fight fake news and hate speech.
European Parliament President Antonio Tajani (right) welcomes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, prior to Tuesday's hearing.
Facebook will add thousands of workers to its offices across Europe, Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday.
In the Facebook CEO's opening statement to the European Parliament on Tuesday, Zuckerberg described his company's commitment to Europe, pointing to the European headquarters in Ireland and an artificial intelligence research lab in Paris.
Facebook has offices in 12 cities across Europe, and they'll be seeing plenty of new faces by year's end, Zuckerberg told European officials.
"By the end of 2018, Facebook will employ 10,000 people across 12 European cities, up from 7,000 today," Zuckerberg said. "And we will continue to invest in Europe in the years ahead."
That hiring spree echoes Facebook's efforts in the US, where the social network promised to hire 10,000 new security and content moderation staffers by the end of 2018. The company last month revealed that it was already halfway to its hiring goal. It's a huge investment -- one that will help increase Facebook's projected spending by up to $12.3 billion in 2018 to a potential total of more than $32.7 billion. (In 2017, it was just under $20.5 billion.)
Zuckerberg has said the hit to Facebook's profitability is necessary to address concerns that bad actors in Russia used Facebook to spread propaganda and misinformation during the 2016 US presidential election. Since then, the company has been dealing with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the political consulting group was able to gain access to data of about 87 million Facebook users without their consent.
The CEO is testifying to the European Parliament about a month after he testified to Congress in Washington, DC. He was summoned to both following Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal, as lawmakers around the world question how much data Facebook holds and scrutinize how the social network protects its 2.2 billion users.
Facebook's CEO has also talked about using and improving AI algorithms to better monitor the social network's users.
"I believe deeply in what we're doing. And when we address these challenges, I know we'll look back and view helping people connect and giving more people a voice as a positive force here in Europe and around the world," Zuckerberg told the EU.
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