Facebook Adds 10,000 Employees To Its Security Team

Facebook is bolstering its security in a big way this fall in an effort to protect users from misleading information. According to the company, it will add 10,000 employees to its security team to help block or remove fake accounts. The company even announced that it has built an actual war room at its headquarters to address the problem.

“This is a huge cross-company effort that requires people of many different disciplines coming together to solve these kinds of problems,” Facebook’s head of civic engagement Samidh Chakrabarti told NBC News. “We have to be ready for anything… that’s why we’ve been building this war room, a physical war room.”

According to Chakrabarti, Facebook has improved its content moderation dramatically over the past six months, blocking and removing over a billion fake accounts. Chakrabarti also promised an “unprecedented” level of transparency with its political advertising. However, at the same time, he admitted that “bad actors” are getting more sophisticated at concealing their identities and locations.

It’s heartening to see Facebook take the problems of fake accounts and misinformation seriously, but at the same time the company seems distressingly confident it has the problem under control. If last year taught us anything, it’s that Facebook needs to maintain constant vigilance when it comes to protecting us.