🔴 Website 👉 https://u-s-news.com/
Telegram 👉 https://t.me/usnewscom_channel
Times are changing over at Meta (formerly Facebook) — Mark Zuckerberg’s tech company.
It was recently announced that Nick Clegg, the company’s global affairs president, would be leaving after heading the position for many years.
Politically, Nick Clegg is a leftist who previously served as the United Kingdom’s deputy prime minister.
Mark Zuckerberg just made the call on Clegg’s replacement, and he’s appointing longtime Republican Joel Kaplan, who served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff in the George W. Bush administration.
Reportedly, Kaplan is one of the most influential conservative voices inside the company and wants to get rid of social media censorship.
Take a look:
Wow! Meta to replace Liberal head of Global Policy Nick Clegg with Republican Joel Kaplan.
Joel reportedly has been one of the most forceful voices inside Meta fighting against censorship.
This is huge. pic.twitter.com/dpJW2VFEkf
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 2, 2025
This is HUGE.
Meta will appoint Joel Kaplan to lead global policy.
Will we get free speech back on Instagram??? pic.twitter.com/8Q3soNQYvC
— Gentry Gevers (@gentrywgevers) January 2, 2025
The former U.K. deputy prime minister, who joined Meta in 2018, will be replaced by longtime Republican operative Joel Kaplan. https://t.co/4mKEiSvqdu
— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) January 3, 2025
This news follows Mark Zuckerberg’s apparent change of heart and politics, with him having dined at Mar-a-Lago with President Trump and donated $1 million to his Inauguration.
Semafor has the full scoop:
Meta is revamping its global policy team, with President Nick Clegg stepping down and being replaced by Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company’s most prominent Republican, people familiar with the matter said.
Kaplan, who was White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, has been one of the most forceful voices inside Meta against restrictions on political speech, arguing internally that such policies would disproportionately mute conservative voices. Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister and ex-leader of the country’s Liberal Democrats, joined Meta in 2018 to lead its policy and lobbying efforts and was named president in 2022.
The shift, three weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, comes as US companies are embracing the president-elect, courting his inner circle, and backing away from progressive stances many had embraced in recent years. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg — whom Trump previously threatened to jail — dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and congratulated the president-elect on his win, one of many big tech executives to do so.
Meta’s political operation is now well placed for a Republican-dominated Washington: Its just-elevated vice president of global public policy, Kevin Martin, was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission by President George W. Bush, and its general counsel, Jennifer Newstead, was the top legal adviser to the Trump State Department from 2017 until joining Meta in 2019.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Meta and the world these past seven years,” Zuckerberg said of Clegg in a statement. “I’ve learned so much working with you and our whole team is better for having this opportunity. You’ve made an important impact advancing Meta’s voice and values around the world, as well as our vision for AI and the metaverse. You’ve also built a strong team to carry this work forward. I’m excited for Joel to step into this role next given his deep experience and insight leading our policy work for many years.”
Fortune added:
Meta cofounder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who previously had a strained relationship with Trump, has reportedly met with the President-elect in Florida, and Meta has recently pledged to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
“As a new year begins, I have come to the view that this is the right time for me to move on from my role as President, Global Affairs at Meta,” Clegg said in a string of posts on X on Thursday.
“My time at the company coincided with a significant resetting of the relationship between ‘big tech’ and the societal pressures manifested in new laws, institutions and norms affecting the sector. I hope I have played some role in seeking to bridge the very different worlds of tech and politics—worlds that will continue to interact in unpredictable ways across the globe,” Clegg wrote.
Clegg joined the company in 2018, when it was still called Facebook and was reelling from backlash over a string of user privacy mishaps and its role sharing misinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Clegg helped launch the company’s oversight board, a panel of experts that makes decisions and advises Zuckerberg on Meta policies around content moderation, privacy, and other issues.
In 2022, Clegg was promoted to president of global affairs, a role that Zuckerberg said at the time elevated the former U.K. politician to the same level as his own, while freeing Zuckerberg to focus on products and strategy.
With Trump set to return to the White House in a few weeks, Meta is facing a very different political environment. The President-elect, who once threatened to have Zuckerberg jailed, and his entourage of right-wing supporters are far more concerned about issues of free speech and alleged censorship on social media platforms than they are with curbing misinformation.
Clegg said on Thursday that he would leave Meta in the “next few months,” after handing over the reins to Kaplan, who he described as “quite clearly the right person for the right job at the right time.”
What do you think?
Is this the beginning of a new day for Facebook and social media?
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.