SHARE
COPY LINK

FACEBOOK

Facebook hatches secret Swiss growth plan

Facebook is poised to invest in Switzerland, the social media giant’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg says.

Facebook hatches secret Swiss growth plan
Sheryl Sandberg talking at World Economic Forum in January. Photo: World Economic Forum

In an interview with SonntagsZeitung, the Zurich-based German-language newspaper, Sandberg said Facebook is planning to expand into Switzerland after opening offices in other parts of Europe.

“We invest a lot of money in European locations,” Facebook’s chief executive is quoted as saying by the newspaper in an online report published on Sunday.

She noted the company, based in California, has an international headquarters in Ireland and last summer opened a data centre in Sweden.

The social networking company also recently opened an office in Berlin.

And now Switzerland?

“Yes, but when I cannot say,” Sandberg told SonntagsZeitung.

“Nothing is official yet.”

Despite the lack of detail, her words were instantly seized upon by the Swiss media.

Other internet companies have a sizable presence in the mountain country, including Google, which has a major research centre in Zurich, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Sandberg, who has recently penned a bestseller called Lean In, a manifesto for women in the workplace, traveled to Davos in the Swiss canton of Graubünden earlier this year for the annual World Economic Forum conference.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

FACEBOOK

Facebook deletes virus conspiracy accounts in Germany

Facebook says it has deleted the accounts, pages and groups linked to virus conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers in Germany who are vocal opponents of government restrictions to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook deletes virus conspiracy accounts in Germany
An anti-vaccination and anti-Covid demo in Berlin on August 28th. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christophe Gateau

With just 10 days to go before Germany’s parliamentary elections – where the handling of the pandemic by Angela Merkel’s goverment will come under scrutiny – Facebook said it had “removed a network of Facebook and Instagram accounts” linked to the so-called “Querdenker” or Lateral Thinker movement.

The pages posted “harmful health misinformation, hate speech and incitement to violence”, the social media giant said in a statement.

It said that the people behind the pages “used authentic and duplicate accounts to post and amplify violating content, primarily focused on promoting the conspiracy that the German government’s Covid-19 restrictions are part of a larger plan to strip citizens of their freedoms and basic rights.”

The “Querdenker” movement, which is already under surveillance by Germany’s intelligence services, likes to portray itself as the mouthpiece of opponents
of the government’s coronavirus restrictions, organising rallies around the country that have drawn crowds of several thousands.

READ ALSO: Germany’s spy agency to monitor ‘Querdenker’ Covid sceptics

It loosely groups together activists from both the far-right and far-left of the political spectrum, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. And some of their rallies have descended into violence.

Social media platforms regularly face accusations that they help propagate misinformation and disinformation, particularly with regard to the pandemic and vaccines.

SHOW COMMENTS