Has Nick Clegg ‘mastered the art of failing upwards’?
Mark Zuckerberg has promoted Clegg to Meta’s president of global affairs

How on earth does Nick Clegg do it, asked Reaction. The former UK deputy prime minister was once best known for wrecking the political fortunes of the Liberal Democrats. Then he moved to Facebook, as vice president (global affairs), where, safe to say, his record has been mixed.
“Facebook on Clegg’s watch has been accused of fuelling misinformation through its failure to tackle misleading content on its platforms.” It has been charged with helping to foment the genocide in Myanmar, and amplifying the lies that stoked the Capitol Hill riots. Yet now Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has made Clegg its president of global affairs, responsible for “all policy matters” worldwide–putting him in theory at a similar level of seniority as Zuckerberg himself. We salute you, Nick Clegg, said Rupert Hawksley in The Independent. You have truly “mastered the art of failing upwards”.
Actually, Clegg “deserves his promotion”, said Emma Duncan in The Times. In the US, he has “dealt niftily” with Facebook’s main problem there: that it has been accused both of “destroying democracy” by allowing fake news to spread, and of undermining freedom of speech by removing disputed posts. Clegg’s canny solution was to play Pontius Pilate: he set up an “oversight board” of “upstanding global citizens” who take independent decisions on Meta’s content. Still, I hope he fails in his main aim of staving off tighter governmental regulation: Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, has grown much too powerful. Its monopolistic power is “not in the public interest”.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Is it too optimistic to think that Clegg’s appointment could be a real force for change, asked Peter Bloom on The Conversation. Might he clean up Meta’s culture of “personal data mining and manipulation”? We’ll soon see if he’s a “genuine reformer” or just someone brought in to perform “ethics washing” on a rotten corporate culture–doing, effectively, the job he did for David Cameron’s Tories during the coalition government.
If he isn’t, he has a lot of work to do, said Frederike Kaltheuner in The Guardian. Meta’s influence is gigantic, and its flaws are fundamental: it is built on “pervasive surveillance” and its algorithms promote “divisive, sensationalist content”. Such issues are likely to be writ large in its new virtual-reality venture, the “metaverse”; instances of “online harassment and abuse” have been reported on VR platforms. Clegg alone can’t fix these problems, but he could help Meta pause and think. “The time to address this is now.”
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Gavin Newsom mulls California redistricting to counter Texas gerrymandering
TALKING POINTS A controversial plan has become a major flashpoint among Democrats struggling for traction in the Trump era
-
6 perfect gifts for travel lovers
The Week Recommends The best trip is the one that lives on and on
-
How can you get the maximum Social Security retirement benefit?
the explainer These steps can help boost the Social Security amount you receive
-
What difference will the 'historic' UK-Germany treaty make?
Today's Big Question Europe's two biggest economies sign first treaty since WWII, underscoring 'triangle alliance' with France amid growing Russian threat and US distance
-
Big, beautiful bill: Supercharging ICE
Feature With billions in new funding, ICE is set to expand its force of agents and build detention camps capable of holding more than 100,000 people
-
Deportations: Citizens could be next
Feature the Trump is expanding denaturalization efforts, targeting naturalized citizens and birthright citizenship
-
Ukraine: Trump's mixed messages
Feature Trump reverses a Pentagon freeze on Patriot missiles to Ukraine as Russia ramps up air attacks
-
Death from above: Drones upend rules of war in Ukraine
Feature The world's militaries are paying close attention to drone use in the Russia-Ukraine war
-
Supreme Court: Ceding more power to Trump?
Feature SCOTUS has given Trump a victory by ending nationwide injunctions, limiting judges' power to block presidential orders
-
Corbynism returns: a new party on the Left
Talking Point Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's breakaway progressive party has already got off to a shaky start
-
Christian extremism: Taking 'holy war' literally
Feature A self-proclaimed minister shot two lawmakers and kept a 'kill list' targeting Democratic officials and abortion providers