Last Updated on 22/11/2021 by Sanskriti
On Monday, Facebook revealed plans to employ 10,000 workers in the European Union to help develop the “metaverse,” a virtual reality version of the internet that the company views as the way of the future. Throughout the next five years to develop a new computer platform that promises to link people electronically but may create privacy issues as the social platform gains greater influence over people’s online life.
Those highly trained individuals will assist develop the metaverse, a futuristic concept for interacting online that combines augmented and virtual reality, according to the business in a blog post published on Sunday.
“The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start,” Facebook said in a blog post.
The metaverse has been hailed by Facebook executives as the next great thing after mobile internet, despite their track record of accurately forecasting future trends. CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s four-year forecasts of enjoying virtual holidays with faraway loved ones through a headset or using a smartphone camera to digitally remodel an apartment have yet to come true. Antitrust investigations, the testimony of a whistleblower former employee, and worries about how it handles vaccine-related and political disinformation are all on the table for the firm.
“As we begin the journey of bringing the metaverse to life, the need for highly specialized engineers is one of Facebook’s most pressing priorities,” Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs, and Javier Olivan, vice president of central products said in the blog posted on Monday.
France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and Ireland are among the countries that Facebook is looking to hire. The social media platform isn’t the only one working on the metaverse, and Facebook has stated that it would not be owned and operated by a single business.
However, there are worries that Facebook and a few other Silicon Valley behemoths would monopolize the metaverse and exploit it to acquire and profit from personal data, similar to how the internet is now used. Last month, Facebook announced a USD 50 million commitment to support worldwide research and collaborations with human rights organizations, charities, governments, and universities to build metaverse-friendly products. However, the firm stated that many of those items would most likely take 10 to 15 years to fully materialise.
