Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg: No revenue impact from violent videos
- COO Sheryl Sandberg said videos of violent acts posted Facebook have had no impact on advertisers and revenue
- Sandberg said there is no place for this criminal content on the platform
- The company is hiring 3,000 more employees to monitor content, as well as more technology tools to report inappropriate content
Violent videos of murders, suicides, and other crimes posted on Facebook have not scared away advertisers, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg told CNBC.
"We are in constant conversation with our advertisers, but we have not seen a revenue impact from this yet," Sandberg said.
Previously, some advertising agencies told CNBC said the fact inappropriate content could appear next to their ads makes them "not comfortable" with video advertising on the platform.
To address the issue of criminal content on its platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday it would hire 3,000 more workers over the next year to monitor the platform for inappropriate content. It would also continue to work with local law enforcement and authorities to report criminal acts, and add tools to make it easier to report concerning posts.
In order for Facebook to be a "safe community," the company needs to respond to these situations in a prompt manner, Zuckerberg wrote in a post. Sandberg echoed his intentions.
"We did this because as Mark said in his post, there's no place for this kind of content on Facebook, and we are going to take every step that we can," Sandberg said. "And, that includes hiring more people in big numbers as you saw, but also building better tools to keep our community safe."
Facebook also reported its quarterly earnings on Wednesday after the bell. Revenue was at $8.03 billion, above the $7.84 Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Earnings per share were $1.04, compared to the 87 cents estimate. However, shares were down over 3 percent in after hours trading.