LONDON: Meta Platforms Inc. on Wednesday carried out another round of job cuts, this time hitting engineers and adjacent tech teams, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg further moved to streamline the business in a bid to make 2023 a “year of efficiency.”
Meta in March became the first Big Tech company to announce a second round of mass layoffs, which it said would take place in three main batches over several months and impact 10,000 employees.
Wednesday’s cuts, though expected, prompted expressions of frustration from Meta employees. Layoffs were the subject of the most popular questions posted on an internal company forum on Wednesday ahead of an upcoming employee town hall.
“You’ve shattered the morale and confidence in leadership of many high performers who work with intensity. Why should we stay at Meta?” read one question seen by Reuters.
The question references comments Zuckerberg made last year urging employees to work with more “intensity” to meet the Facebook and Instagram parent company’s business challenges.
The company declined a Reuters request for comment.
Meta’s first round of layoffs in the fall hit more than 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce at the time, and preceded other major tech companies shedding thousands of employees after a pandemic-led boom in digital advertising and cloud computing.
With the restructuring, Meta is also shelving lower-priority projects and “flattening” layers of middle management.
Investors have rewarded the company for downsizing.
Meta shares have surged about 80 percent this year, outperforming the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite’s 16 percent rise in the period.
The company, which will announce its first-quarter results on April 26, is expected to benefit from a modest pickup in the digital advertising market and regulatory pressure on chief rival TikTok.
Meta lays off tech teams, battering employee morale
https://arab.news/jfzk2
Meta lays off tech teams, battering employee morale
- Employees expressed frustration, low confidence after latest round of layoffs
- Investors rewarded Meta's decision to downsize the company, shares surged 80%
Israeli court overturns conviction of officer who assaulted Palestinian journalist, citing ‘Oct. 7 PTSD’
- Judge sentenced Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service, saying officer “devoted his life to Israel’s security” and conviction was “disproportionate to severity of his actions”
- Footage shows Sofer throwing photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque
LONDON: An Israeli court overturned the conviction of a border police officer who assaulted a Palestinian journalist, ruling his actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder from serving during the Oct. 7 2023 attacks.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced officer Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service for assaulting Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf in occupied East Jerusalem in December 2023.
Footage shows Sofer and other officers drawing weapons, throwing Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque amid heavy restrictions.
Alkharouf was hospitalized with facial and body injuries. His cameraman, Faiz Abu Ramila, was also attacked.
Anadolu photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf violently attacked by Israeli army in occupied East Jerusalem while covering Palestinian prayers near Al-Aqsa Mosque
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) December 15, 2023
Incident highlights ongoing restrictions on Friday prayers and press freedom in region https://t.co/exT6XqjEaA pic.twitter.com/pqugK9HnOt
Sofer had been convicted in September 2024 of assault causing bodily harm (acquitted of threats) and initially faced six months’ community service, as recommended by Mahash, the Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit.
Judge Amir Shaked accepted the defense request to cancel the conviction, replacing it with community service.
He cited Sofer’s PTSD from responding to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, noting the officer had “no prior criminal record” and had “devoted his life to Israel’s security.”
“The court cannot ignore this when considering whether the defendant’s conviction should stand,” he said, adding that while the incident is “serious and does cross the criminal threshold,” the conviction in place could cause Sofer harm “disproportionate to the severity of his actions.”
The ruling comes amid surging attacks on journalists in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since Israel’s war on Gaza began.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported Israel responsible for two-thirds of the 129 media workers killed worldwide in 2025, the deadliest year on record, citing a “persistent culture of impunity” and lack of transparent probes.
Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli army the “worst enemy of journalists” in its 2025 report, with nearly half of global reporter deaths in Gaza.
Foreign journalists face raids, arrests and intimidation. In late January 2026, Israel’s Supreme Court granted a delay on ruling a ban on foreign media access to Gaza.
