Facebook will hire 3,000 more moderators to keep deaths and crimes from being streamed

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Mark Zuckerberg

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that Facebook plans to hire 3,000 more content moderators to keep crimes, suicides, and other violent acts from being shared on the social network.

Numerous videos of suicides and murders have been either live streamed or shared later on Facebook over the past year. Last month, a shooter dubbed the "Facebook killer" was the subject of a nationwide manhunt after he posted a Facebook video showing him killing an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio.

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"Over the last few weeks, we've seen people hurting themselves and others on Facebook - either live or in video posted later," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. "It's heartbreaking, and I've been reflecting on how we can do better for our community."

The 3,000 additional workers Facebook plans to hire will join the 4,500 content reviewers already employed by the social giant around the world. Zuckerberg said the new moderators will help review the millions of posts that are flagged by Facebook users each week.

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"These reviewers will also help us get better at removing things we don't allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation," he wrote. "And we'll keep working with local community groups and law enforcement who are in the best position to help someone if they need it -- either because they're about to harm themselves, or because they're in danger from someone else."

This story is developing...

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