Facebook plans to hire 10,000 in EU to build ‘metaverse’

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — Facebook says it plans to hire 10,000 workers in the European Union over the next five years to work on a new computing platform. The company said in a blog post Sunday that those high-skilled workers will help build “the metaverse,” a futuristic notion for connecting people online that encompasses augmented and virtual reality. Facebook executives have been touting the metaverse as the next big thing after the mobile internet as they also contend with other matters such as antitrust crackdowns, the testimony of a whistleblowing ex-employee and concerns about how the company handles vaccine-related and political misinformation on its platform.