PHOTO: REUTERS

Instagram's CEO is managing the billion-user network from his garage

Adam Mosseri and his team face immense pressure to keep their servers up and running


Tech Desk March 27, 2020
With countries going in complete lockdown amid the spread of coronavirus, companies around the world have resorted to working from home.

Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, is operating one of the biggest social media platforms in the world from his garage.

"I don't normally work from my garage," said Mosseri, responding to the question,  what it's like to run one of the biggest social media platforms in the world from his San Francisco home? in an interview with CNN Business over Skype.

 

The company has launched "Stay at Home" tab featured in the Stories section at the top of its feed, the feature offers a way for users to share updates on their stay-at-home days.

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The feature might be able to encourage people to stay indoors. Mosseri revealed that the "Stay at Home" Instagram stories were so in-demand that it almost crashed the site in the hours after it went live.

Mosseri and his team face immense pressure to keep their servers up and running as the world has shifted its gear towards living their lives online.

Along with this, the company has also been handling inaccurate and potentially dangerous misinformation about the coronavirus surfacing the social media platform.

"Having our workforce, particularly our moderators, work from home, is creating all sorts of challenges that we need to work through," said Mosseri.

"Just generally, the amount of output we should be able to expect on a per person basis is just going to go down," he said.

"There is no way around that, which is why it is so important we get creative and make sure that we continue to make sure we keep people stay safe on the platform," he added that the company still needs to keep an eye out for content related to child exploitation and terrorism.

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The company is constantly bringing accurate information directly from the World Health Organisation (WHO) accompanied with links to official government agencies that have appeared at the top of users' Instagram feeds around the world.

"I actually think search in general on platforms like ours gets way too much attention because it is not something people do that often. It is more important that people get good information when they come to the app in the first place," he said.

Instagram's employees are working from home, "we need to take care of our people if we are going to be able to help address the crisis and live up to our responsibility," said Mosseri.

This article originally published on CNN Business.

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