Nick Clegg employer Facebook
Facebook
In June 2018, vice-president of global affairs and communications at Facebook, Inc. Elliot Schrage announced he would be resigning his position. After talks with the Facebook leadership and Richard Allan, Baron Allan of Hallam, Facebook's Director of Policy in Europe and the Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam before Clegg, in October 2018 it was announced that Clegg had been hired as a lobbyist and public relations officer, replacing Schrage as Vice-President, Global Affairs and Communications. He joined Facebook because he was "convinced that the culture is changing" and that "lawmakers need to have a serious conversation about whether data-intensive companies allow other companies to share and use data". He admitted that the Cambridge Analytica data scandal had "rocked Facebook to its very foundations" and told the BBC that the company "hadn't done enough in the past" in regards to data privacy.In April 2019, Clegg was accused by Věra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, in a letter signed by a number of senior EU civil servants, of misunderstanding EU law, stating that proposed new Facebook guidelines on political advertising would "hinder the exercise of EU electoral rights." In May 2019, he rejected calls by American presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to break Facebook up, saying that Facebook was "a great American success story" and that "I don't think it's a very American tradition to start penalizing success." In June 2019, Clegg said there was "absolutely no evidence" that Russia had influenced the outcome of the EU referendum using Facebook. He said that the company was working towards greater regulation of technology firms. In October 2019, Damian Collins, chair of the British House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, formally asked Clegg to explain why Facebook had exempted political statements from fact-checking guidelines.In 2020, Clegg helped lead the creation of the Facebook Oversight Board, which reported to him, convincing former Danish Prime Minister and former College of Europe friend Helle Thorning-Schmidt to serve as its co-chair. He then played a role in Facebook's deplatforming of U.S. President Donald Trump in mid-2021.Ahead of the release of the whistleblown Facebook Files in October 2021, Clegg authored an internal memo saying that there was no evidence Facebook was a main cause in polarisation and that the company does not "profit from polarization, in fact, just the opposite." He later posted a public statement saying that the reporting on the Files "conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook's leadership and employees," saying that it was "just plain false" that Facebook ignored its own internal research. After the release of the Files, he then made a number of public interviews defending the company. In one of the interviews, he stated that "I can't give you a yes or no answer" when asked if Facebook played a role in amplifying extremist content ahead of the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Clegg faced criticism for his role in defending the company, with The Guardian journalist John Harris dubbing him "the fall guy for Facebook's failures".In February 2022, Clegg was promoted to president of global affairs.
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