Bonuses for Facebook employees will now hinge on how efficiently the company tackles issues like fake news and hate speech on the platform.
The social media giant, which employs nearly 36,000 people and celebrated its 15th anniversary this week, previously based employee bonuses on six factors including user growth, increase in engagement and savings, improvements in product quality and brand, and progress in long-term investments.
The change, which was announced by CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday at Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, emphasizes “moving from a focus on growth, to a focus on change,” a representative said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“Over the past two years, we’ve fundamentally changed how we run Facebook. This particular change is designed to ensure that we are incentivizing people to keep making progress on the major social issues facing the Internet and our company,” the representative said.
Facebook’s announcement came the same day as it removed 22 pages affiliated with known conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his right-wing site InfoWars, CNET reports. Facebook has been increasing its security measures and cracking down on fake accounts that spread misinformation in the midst of the widespread criticism for its role in allowing possible foreign meddling into 2016 presidential elections and a growing cloud of doubts about how efficiently the company protects its users’ privacy and data. The removal of Jones’ pages stems from related changes made to the platform’s “recidivism policy” in January.
“Our current century is defined more by networks of people who have the freedom to interact with whom they want and the ability to easily share ideas and experiences,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post celebrating the platform’s milestone anniversary.
“For the last couple of years, most of the discussion has been about new social and ethical issues that these networks raise,” the post read, “whether that’s governing content to balance free expression and safety, the principles for protecting privacy in a world where people share so much information, how to improve health and well-being when we’re always connected, and ensuring the integrity of our elections and democratic process.”
Labeling the social and ethical issues he’d outlined as “critical,” Zuckerberg said his platform has “a responsibility to manage these networks more proactively to prevent harm.”
