Facebook will hire 10,000 people in Europe for the metaverse
Facebook will hire 10
The company said that to create the IT platform of the future, which could take up to 15 years, it will need highly skilled engineers
Photo: via Facebook To transform the metaverse from a futuristic idea to a reality Facebook has announced a plan to create 1 0,000 new jobs in the European Union over the next five years. In a post on the corporate blog by Nick Clegg, vice president for global affairs, and Javier Olivan, vice president for product core services, Facebook said it was “at the beginning of a journey to help build the IT platform. of the future ”, for which it will need“ highly specialized engineers ”.As far as we know so far from the words of the same company the metaverse is an online world in which people can play, work and communicate thanks to virtual and augmented reality. According to Facebook, in the metaverse, online interaction can become very close to the experiences that are lived in person. The metaverse would also have the potential to help "unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities."
Facebook said the metaverse, which has become one of its priorities in recent months, "will not be built overnight by a single company ”and promised that no one will own or manage it. As in the case of the internet, "its distinguishing feature will be that it is open and interoperable," says Facebook.
The company of Menlo Park, as already reported recently, has reiterated that for the construction of the metaverse will be necessary collaboration and cooperation "between companies, developers, creators and politicians". Facebook recently invested $ 50 million in funding nonprofit groups to help "build the metaverse responsibly." The company then promised to be the first to invest in the product and technological talents. And he explains that it could take between 10 and 15 years to make this vision a reality.
The company in its statement argued that Europe is extremely important to Facebook and investing here offers many benefits, including l '' access to a large market, excellent universities and high-quality talent. According to Facebook, the Union also plays an important role "in defining the new internet rules". European politicians are at the forefront of including European values, “such as freedom of expression, privacy, transparency and people's rights, in the daily functioning of the internet”. For this reason the company would like to increase its presence in Europe and contribute to innovation in the region.
Facebook's announcement comes at a time of great difficulty for the company, under the lens of opinion publishes after a series of scandals revealed by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by a former employee of the company, Frances Haugen, heard in a hearing in the American senat. The woman should soon appear before the European parliamentarians as well.
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Facebook plans to hire 10,000 in Europe to build ‘metaverse’
FILE - In this April 14, 2020 file photo, the thumbs up Like logo is shown on a sign at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform. The company said in a blog post Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021 that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting people online that uses augmented and virtual reality. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
FILE - In this April 14, 2020 file photo, the thumbs up Like logo is shown on a sign at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform. The company said in a blog post Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021 that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting people online that uses augmented and virtual reality. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
LONDON (AP) — Facebook said it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform that promises to connect people virtually but could raise concerns about privacy and the social platform gaining more control over people’s online lives.
The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting online that uses augmented and virtual reality.
Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet, though their track record is spotty on predicting future trends. Expectations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg made four years ago of taking virtual vacations with faraway loved ones via a headset or using a smartphone camera to improve an apartment virtually have not materialized so far.
The company also is contending with antitrust crackdowns, the testimony of whistleblowing former employees and concerns about how it handles vaccine-related and political misinformation.
“As we begin the journey of bringing the metaverse to life, the need for highly specialized engineers is one of Facebook’s most pressing priorities,” according to the blog post from Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs, and Javier Olivan, vice president of central products.
Facebook’s recruiters are targeting Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands and Ireland for the hiring drive.
The metaverse essentially is a massive virtual world that can be accessed in real time by millions of people using avatars, who can use it to hold virtual meetings or buy virtual land and clothing or other digital assets, often paying with cryptocurrencies.
The social network isn’t the only one working on the metaverse, and Facebook acknowledged that no single company will own and operate it. Other players include Fortnite maker Epic Games, which has raised $1 billion from investors to help with its long-term plans for building the metaverse.
But there are concerns Facebook and a handful of other Silicon Valley giants would end up monopolizing the metaverse and use it to collect and profit from personal data, mirroring the situation now with the internet.
Facebook last month announced a $50 million investment to fund global research and partnerships with civil rights groups, nonprofits, governments and universities to develop products responsibly for the metaverse. But the company added that it would probably take 10 to 15 years to “fully realize” many of those products.
In a separate blog post Sunday, the company defended its approach to combating hate speech, in response to a Wall Street Journal article that examined the company’s inability to detect and remove hateful and excessively violent posts.
A British parliamentary committee that’s working on legislation to combat online harm is set to hear from two Facebook whistleblowers this week and next. Sophie Zhang, a data scientist who raised the alarm after finding evidence of online political manipulation in countries such as Honduras and Azerbaijan before she was fired, will appear before the committee Monday afternoon.
Next week, the committee will hear from Frances Haugen, who went public with internal Facebook research that she copied before leaving her job earlier this year. Haugen testified before a U.S. Senate panel this month about her accusations Facebook’s platforms harm children and incite political violence, and her British appearance will be the start of a tour to meet European lawmakers and regulators.
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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
