The head of Meta Ireland discusses job losses at the company, its ‘constructive relationship’ with the Data Protection Commission, and tackling disinformation. The company has officially opened its new campus-style European headquarters in Dublin, a major milestone for the social media giant.
You could wonder if that had been the plan all along – one eye on the top Irish job. But O’Leary dismisses that. “Opportunities come up. Things change within companies. I came in to do that role of VP of Europe, Middle East and Africa, learning the business, the people, the culture, the business,” she says. “But obviously I was always open to new opportunities that evolve within a company. I was in a few months and the head of Ireland role came up due to changes that were made in the company.
In the first few days we removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content for violating policies in Hebrew and Arabic Meta Ireland's Anne O'Leary: 'We felt it wasn't appropriate to send a speaker to the Web Summit this year'. Photograph: Naoise Culhane Still, the company is facing more challenges. With US elections looming, the spotlight will be once more turned on how social media platforms act in the face of co-ordinated disinformation campaigns. Meta has experience of this from 2016, but there is a lot stake. Not only does it still have billions of active users on Facebook and Instagram, but now you can throw Threads into the mix.