What should we make of this?
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has long been criticized for its data privacy and policy practices.
The troublewith Facebook and data privacy has only continued, however.
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Most notoriously, this was also the year that Facebook acknowledged it knew aboutmassive data harvestingin theCambridge Analyticascandal.
The FTC went on to finethe companya record-breaking US$5 billion (3.7 billion) over the scandal.
Most recently, it was condemned for attracting users by becoming a space forfar-right extremismandCOVID-19fear-mongering.
These worries have only been heightened by the announcement of the companys vision of the metaverse in October 2021.
On offer is an almost completely virtual future reality hosted and controlled by Meta.
There would be seemingly little stopping the company from completely violating and exploiting peoples data for decades to come.
So is Clegg going to stop this from happening?
A new era of protection?
Heargued thattheres an analogy here when it comes to regulating extremist content on social media platforms.
Overall, however, manyhave wonderedwhether Clegg has changed anything at Meta beyond a slight change of image.
In 2018, it hired the brilliant computer scientist Timnit Gebru to help address and solve this problem.
Yet it very publiclyfired herwhen she sought to bring about real changes to the company.
Similarly, firms have taken public stands again racismwithout necessarilypracticing what they preach.
Clegg-washing
Ironically, Nick Clegg has gone through his own early political version of such washing.
In retrospect, Cleggwas arguablypart of a Tory branding exercise, giving them cover to impose economic austerity.
The language of the statement announcing Cleggs hiring was telling.
Ultimately, Cleggs hiring shows the power of public pressure, even for a huge tech conglomerate like Meta.
