By Stu Woo
LONDON-- Facebook Inc. has hired one of Britain's best-known
politicians as its top policy and communications executive, giving
a Silicon Valley outsider the task of mending the social network's
image as it deals with increased political scrutiny in the U.S. and
abroad.
Facebook said Friday that Nick Clegg, who as deputy prime
minister was Britain's No. 2 leader from 2010 to 2015, would
replace Elliot Schrage, who said in June that he was stepping
down.
Mr. Clegg starts his new job Monday and will move to California
in January. Mr. Schrage will remain at Facebook and report to Chief
Operating Officer Sandberg as an adviser, focusing for now on
helping Mr. Clegg transition to his new role, according to a
Facebook spokeswoman.
Mr. Clegg's recruitment comes as trust in Facebook has eroded in
2018 and as Silicon Valley faces growing scrutiny from European
regulators on several fronts.
Outrage grew this spring over allegations that data firm
Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed information on tens of
millions of Facebook users and that Russian-backed propagandists
had exploited the social network.
More recently, hackers, believed to be spammers, gained access
to the private information of 30 million Facebook users.
Facebook officials have been busy explaining the recent breach
to Washington and foreign governments, including in the U.K. In
Brussels, Facebook could face a European Union fine of as much as
$1.63 billion.
Although unknown in Silicon Valley, Mr. Clegg brings insight
from one of Facebook's toughest battlegrounds: the European
Union.
The 28-country bloc increasingly sees itself as a bulwark
against U.S. technology giants that it views as overpowered. It has
probed the tax arrangements of U.S. tech companies including Apple
Inc. and has clashed with Google on several fronts, most recently
issuing the search giant a $5 billion fine for allegedly abusing
the dominance of its Android mobile-phone software. Google is
appealing.
The EU gained a new tool this spring when data-protection rules,
called the General Data Protection Regulation, went into effect,
with regulators having the power to fine companies that don't
comply.
Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg spent a lot of time with Mr.
Clegg before hiring him, said a person familiar with the
process.
In a Facebook post, Ms. Sandberg said the company faced serious
challenges and "now more than ever" needed new perspectives.
"His [Mr. Clegg's] experience and ability to work through
complex issues will be invaluable in the years to come," she
said.
The move is arguably Facebook's most high-profile external hire
since poaching Ms. Sandberg from Google in 2008. As part of its
search, Facebook spoke with a number of prominent public-policy and
communications officials on Wall Street and some with ties to the
Obama administration, according to people familiar with the
process.
Among those who were interviewed or approached about the job
were Denis McDonough, former White house chief of staff under
Obama; Jay Carney, the former White House press secretary who is
now senior vice president of global corporate affairs at
Amazon.com; Jake Sullivan, a former senior policy adviser to
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign; and Jake Siewert, the head
of corporate communications at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according
to people familiar with the process.
For the last decade, Facebook's policy and communications
strategy has been set by Mr. Schrage, who currently reports to Ms.
Sandberg. He has been the architect of Facebook's response to
various controversies over the last two years.
Mr. Clegg will have to manage a more hostile regulatory
environment for tech companies as well as increasingly aggressive
reportage by the media. Facebook insiders expect deeper regulation
of its business and the new policy chief will play a major role in
pushing for laws that favor the company.
That is particularly true in Europe, where Mr. Clegg has the
most expertise and where EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe
Vestager has emerged as one of the most aggressive regulators of
big tech companies such as Facebook.
Mr. Clegg knows Brussels well, having previously worked for the
European Commission, partly as a trade negotiator, before entering
politics. Mr. Clegg, who speaks several European languages, was
also a European lawmaker.
He said Friday in a Facebook post that the social network had a
responsibility not only to its users but society at large, and that
it was at the heart of complex issues such as privacy and free
speech.
His appointment surprised Britain's political world Friday. He
led the Liberal Democrats, a centrist group traditionally viewed as
the country's third-biggest political party, from 2007 to 2015. He
became deputy prime minister in 2010 after the Liberal Democrats
joined the Conservatives in a governing coalition that lasted until
his party faltered in the 2015 election. Mr. Clegg lost his own
seat as a lawmaker in Britain's parliament in 2017.
Since then, Mr. Clegg has been a vocal advocate for the European
Union, calling for a second referendum on the U.K.'s membership.
Britain is set to leave the bloc in 2019.
The hire comes as Facebook's upper ranks undergo a major
upheaval, some of which has sparked infighting between Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other senior executives over the
direction of the company.
In the past year, 10 senior and highly visible executives have
left or announced their departures, including the co-founders of
Instagram and WhatsApp, two companies that Facebook bought years
ago to power its user and revenue growth. Several longstanding
lieutenants have also left, including Mr. Schrage, Dan Rose, vice
president of partnerships, and Colin Stretch, Facebook's general
counsel.
Meanwhile, several public funds holding Facebook stock are
backing a proposal to push out Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg as
the board's chairman.
Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 19, 2018 10:59 ET (14:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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