Meta lays off most staffer dedicated to combating misinformation

Meta has almost wiped out its team dedicated to combating misinformation, as part of the latest round of mass layoffs

New Delhi: Meta has almost wiped out its team dedicated to combating misinformation, as part of the latest round of mass layoffs that began earlier this week.

According to ‘Command Line’ by The Verge’s Alex Heath, the majority of the team responsible for combating fake news across Facebook and Instagram has been sacked.

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“The team size was about 50 people,” the report said.

A company spokesperson was quoted as saying that the remaining team members are being integrated into trust and safety teams.

“We remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and continue to invest in teams and technologies to protect our community,” the spokesperson said.

Meta (formerly Facebook) kicked off a fresh round of layoffs this week, handing over pink slips to employees with technical backgrounds globally. The job cuts impacted people working in verticals like user experience, software engineering, graphics programming and other roles.

Meta was set to lay off at least 4,000 highly-skilled employees this week.

In March, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced that the company would cut 10,000 jobs in the coming months.

The fresh cuts came just four months after Meta laid off 11,000 employees, or 13 per cent of the company’s workforce, in November last year.