• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer, January 22, 2020

Potentially pacifying some of its critics abroad, Facebook continues to invest in overseas markets.

Case in point, the tech giant just committed to hiring 1,000 new workers in London this year.

Announced by Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, the move is expected to bring Facebook’s U.K. workforce to roughly 4,000 before the end of the year.

“These are highly skilled jobs to help us address the challenges of an open Internet,” Sandberg said Tuesday.

Among other positions, Facebook is looking for software engineers, product designers, and data scientists on the other side of the pond.

As part of the expansion, Sandberg also said Facebook plans to open a new office in King’s Cross next year.

Of course, London is home to some of Facebook’s most vocal critics.

Among other allegations, they have repeatedly accused the social Goliath of facilitating the spread of political misinformation, abusing its access to consumer data, and failing to be more open about its business practices.

Whether or not critics will respond positively to Facebook's focus on their local economies remains to be seen. However, it’s only part of the company’s efforts to appease policymakers around the world.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example, Facebook agreed to modify its terms and conditions to make its business practices clearer to users in the United Kingdom last year.

At the time, Vera Jourová, Europe’s consumer protection commissioner, applauded the move as showing a “commitment to more transparency and straightforward language in its terms of use.”

Last year, Britain announced plans to place aggressive new regulations on the broader social-media industry.

Outlined in a white paper, the proposal spanned legislative and non-legislative measures and endeavored to make social networks more responsible for the safety of their users.