Following a devastating financial report, Facebook has recently begun major cost-cutting measures. And of course, one of the first things to go is the company’s effort to improve itself. According to reports this week, Facebook parent company Meta has disbanded a team of 20 engineers and ethicists who were studying the potential negative effects of Facebook and Instagram.

The company confirmed that the Responsible Innovation team had been broken up, and that its members would continue performing similar watchdog roles elsewhere in the company. However, it also said that these employees would not be guaranteed jobs.

“This work is more of a priority than ever, not less,” Meta spokesman Eric Porterfield told CNET. “We are scaling it by deploying dedicated teams of experts into priority product areas and have more people working on responsible innovation within product teams than two years ago. That’s why the overwhelming majority of former members of this team are continuing with this kind of work elsewhere at Meta.”

For experts and advocates who are already afraid that Facebook isn’t taking its privacy problems seriously, this news is bound to trigger even more alarm. That’s why the company must continue investing in measures like this if it ever wants to win back user trust.

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