Mass Meta job cuts ignite online safety fears

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has written to Meta regarding the thousands of staff cuts it ­announced this month, seeking assurances it can keep its platforms ‘safe and trustworthy’.

Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has written to Meta regarding the thousands of staff cuts it ­announced this month, seeking assurances the move won’t impact on the tech giant’s ability to effect­ively monitor abhorrent content and keep its platforms “safe and trustworthy” for Australians.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, revealed it would ­reduce its team’s size by 10,000 while closing about 5000 ­additional open roles that hadn’t been filled.

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he expected to announce “restructurings and lay-offs in our tech groups in late April”. “In a small number of cases, it may take through the end of the year to complete these changes. Our timelines for international teams will also look different,” he said.

A Meta spokeswoman told The Weekend Australian there was “no additional information regarding Meta in Australia at this time”.

But Ms Inman Grant sent a letter to the tech giant on Tuesday night airing concerns over the cuts.

“We hope to gain greater clarity over the coming days about how these cuts might potentially affect its Australian-based personnel as well as its global trust and safety teams,” she said.

“To that end, I have written to senior leadership at Meta seeking to understand how the company may target some of the cuts here in Australia, and what impact they may have on Meta’s ability to provide safe and trustworthy platforms for Australian users.

“This information is crucial for us to assess whether Meta is meeting the government’s basic expectations of providers.”

Ms Inman Grant said it was vital companies such as Meta maintained an adequate level of “local personnel” in Australia to give eSafety a direct point of contact through which to raise concerns about online harms including child exploitation material and misinformation.

“Deep cuts to these local teams can reduce our ability as a regulator to escalate matters, seek information about trust and safety practices and policies, and assist tech companies to comply with Australian regulations,” she said.

“Given the size of the latest job cuts announced by Meta, which reportedly amount to more than 10 per cent of its global workforce, it remains to be seen what effect they will have across a range of functions at the company, including key areas like trust and safety and public policy.

“As Australia’s online safety regulator, we know all too well the harm caused by online abuse and illegal and restricted content, and we also know that identifying and swiftly removing this content is key to reducing this harm.”

Communications Minister ­Michelle Rowland said Meta’s staff cuts “raised questions about the platform’s ability to moderate harmful content of their services in Australia”. “While we do not yet know whether these cuts will ­impact Meta jobs in Australia, we are closely monitoring the potential impacts to ensure they do not have a detrimental impact on the safety of users in Australia,” she said.

Ms Inman Grant and Ms Rowland both wrote directly to Twitter after Elon Musk axed more than half its staff last year, warning the platform could face legal consequences if it did not explain how it would be able to properly police child pornography or other ­malicious activity.