Irish recruitment firm Cpl Resources, which provides staff and services to Facebook for content moderation, has moved to distance itself from criticism after a Channel 4 documentary showed its staff being instructed not to remove graphic content from Facebook, reports the Irish Times.

In a statement, Cpl said: “On becoming aware of this program we, in conjunction with Facebook, reviewed the issues being raised and took immediate action to address these. This has included refresher training conducted by Facebook personnel so as to ensure that our relevant employees remain up-to-date with Facebook policy and its implementation. Ensuring that our employees are suitably qualified, trained and supported so as to deal with what is a demanding job is crucially important to us.”

The undercover investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches program at Cpl, Facebook's largest centre for UK content moderation, found that the social media giant’s moderators were instructed not to remove extreme, abusive or graphic content from the platform even when it violated the company's guidelines.

Facebook called the practices "mistakes" which do not "reflect Facebook's policies or values".

Rte reports that the Channel 4 reporter attended training sessions and filmed conversations in the Cpl offices in Dublin over a six-week period between March and April this year.

One moderator filmed in the program said: "If you start censoring too much then people stop using the platform. It's all about money at the end of the day."

Cpl Resources reported revenue for the half year ended 31 December 2017 of €256.7 million, an increase of 12% compared to the previous year.