Google News Cuts Dozens of Staff Amid Rising Concern Over War News, Misinformation
As social media platforms and tech companies come under scrutiny for their handling of news and misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war, Google reportedly cut dozens of jobs in its news division.
CNBC reported Thursday that 40 to 45 workers in Google News lost their jobs, citing an an Alphabet Workers Union spokesperson, who did not know the exact number of people let go.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to CNBC but also did not cite a specific number. The spokesperson did tell the outlet there are still “hundreds” of people working on the news product.
“We’re deeply committed to a vibrant information ecosystem, and news is a part of that long-term investment,” the spokesperson told CNBC. “We’ve made some internal changes to streamline our organization. A small number of employees were impacted. We’re supporting everyone with a transition period, outplacement services and severance as they look for new opportunities at Google and beyond.”
Google News is an aggregation service that provides links to stories written by thousands of publishers.
The cuts come at a sensitive time, when elected officials and others have called out the vast amount of mis- and disinformation flooding the internet as the war rages.
Bloomberg reported last week that unverified videos of missile air strikes and buildings being destroyed circulating online frequently came from prior conflicts, and even video games.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pinchai on Tuesday posted a note that said “our security teams have been working around the clock to counter threats and disinformation. We’ve been very focused on detecting and removing graphically violent, hateful or terrorist content, or coordinated disinformation campaigns.”
“Content moderation on our platforms is a critical focus right now,” Pinchai said. “We will continue to tackle disinformation, hate speech, graphic content and terrorist content.” He did not detail specifics on the efforts.
The problem is particularly acute on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which gutted its content moderation team after Elon Musk bought it last year, has seen a surge of posts, including praise for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians from Iran.
On Tuesday, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet also demanded to learn how Alphabet, X, TikTok and Meta, parent of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, were trying to stop the spread of false information, pointing to the widespread layoffs in the industry earlier this year.
“Over the past year, many of these companies laid off hundreds of staff who focused on content moderation or combating disinformation,” Bennet said in the letter. “These decisions contribute to a cascade of violence, paranoia, and distrust around the world. Your platforms are helping produce an information ecosystem in which basic facts are increasingly in dispute, while untrustworthy sources are repeatedly designated as authoritative.”
Last week, European Commissioner Thierry Breton posted a letter on X last week that accused the platform allowing users to disseminate illegal content and disinformation. He also sent letters to Pichai and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, reminding them of the content moderation requirements under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
Google’s spokesperson told CNBC that the latest cuts won’t hurt content moderation. “These internal changes have no impact on our misinformation and information quality work in News,” the representative said.
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