Facebook plans to hire 1,000 people in the UK this year, as it looks to boost efforts in removing harmful online content from its platforms, a representative told Mobile World Live.

The move is due to be announced today (21 January) by Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg. The company said the appointments will take total staff numbers in the UK to more than 4,000, adding to the nation’s status as its largest engineering hub outside its domestic US market.

Additional staff will be deployed at Facebook’s three locations in London. More than half of the new roles will focus on software engineering, product design, data science, and product development. The social media giant will also hire people for its teams involved in AI, AR and VR, and engineering infrastructure.

The company said a large pile of the job offerings will aim to expand its unit dedicated to building tools to detect and remove harmful content from Facebook’s platforms, including its core business, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp services.

As part of its expansion plans, Facebook will construct new office space across two buildings in London with capacity for 6,000 workstations. The first is expected to open in late 2021.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the announcement, stating it was “great news Facebook plans to create a thousand more jobs in London – yet another sign of the strength of our dynamic tech sector”.

“We are committed to making the UK the safest place in the world to be online, alongside being one of the best places for technology companies to be based”, he added.

The social media giant’s move could be seen as an effort to rebuild its reputation in the country after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, which revealed the political consulting company had obtained user data from Facebook to build software that could influence voters’ choices in elections.