Facebook Pauses Construction On $750m Alabama Data Centre Amid COVID-19 Pandemic
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Facebook Pauses Construction On $750m Alabama Data Centre Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

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Facebook has pressed the pause button on the construction of its Huntsville, Alabama data centre campus due to safety concerns over staff during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The social media giant announced on its website that it will be significantly reducing construction activities at the data centre site to help protect the construction crew during the pandemic.

“We look forward to welcoming everyone back on site as soon as it’s safe to do so. Hope everyone can stay safe and healthy,” said the firm last week.

The company also announced that it has suspended construction on its expansion project at the company’s data centre campus in Clonee, Ireland.

According to a report by rte, Facebook plans to pay an “appreciation bonus” to workers who are temporarily being removed from the Clonee data centre site

Last year, the company expanded the data centre in County Meath, Ireland for a second time. The facility in Clonee was opened in 2016, and saw an expansion in 2018, with the building of two further data halls.

Elsewhere, the social media firm revealed it has been working to connect people to accurate information about COVID-19 and taking aggressive steps to stop misinformation and harmful content from spreading.

“We launched the COVID-19 Information Centre, which is now featured at the top of News Feed on Facebook in several countries and includes real-time updates from national health authorities and global organisations, such as the WHO. The COVID-19 Information Centre will be available globally soon,” said Facebook.

“Through these efforts across Facebook and Instagram, we’ve directed more than 1 billion people to resources from health authorities including the WHO – more than 100 million of whom clicked through to learn more.”

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