Can even a man with Nick Clegg’s record of unblemished political success rescue Facebook’s reputation? There is an awful symmetry in Sir Nick’s move from British politics to Facebook. In his earlier career, he stood for a posture of responsibility without power, of careless promises to which he was later held by an unforgiving electorate. In his new one there will be more of the same. Facebook too has a long record of cheap rhetoric about democracy and bringing people together – alongside a record of acting as a tool for destabilising democracies and in some cases for the encouragement of genocide in Myanmar or the organisation of mob violence through its WhatsApp subsidiary in Sri Lanka.
Facebook, just like the Liberal Democrats, is now trying to restore its tattered image with the general public. Its recent announcement that it will bring as much transparency as it can to the business of political advertising in the UK is welcome, but does not address the question of who recently spent £250,000 on a targeted campaign against Theresa May’s Chequers deal.
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