Facebook's global affairs head asked to clarify questions on abuse of politicians

Facebook’s head of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg has been asked to appear before a committee of MPs to take questions about rising abuse of politicians on social media. As per a letter UK Labour MP, Harriet Harman, the former deputy Prime Minister is “uniquely well placed” to talk and substantiate on whether social media abuse was suppressing democracy since Clegg has been an MP himself for 12 years. [caption id=“attachment_5418001” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Facebook’s Head of Global Affairs and former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg speaks at a campaign event in London, Britain. Image: Reuters[/caption] As pointed out in a report by The Telegraph, this also happens to be Sir Nick Clegg’s first official invite to appear before MPs since he was hired by Facebook in October last year. Harman in a letter to Clegg mentioned that she wanted the former MP to give evidence to the committee, which is conducting an inquiry into democracy and free speech, in “early March”. The committee’s inquiry will be focussing on “the balance between the right to protest and the right of MPs to be able to go about their work safely and free from threat and harassment,” Harman added. Facebook, which also owns popular messaging platform WhatsApp and image sharing platform Instagram, has been accused in the past along with other social media giants of not doing enough to tackle threats against MPs and other elected officials on its platforms. Facebook has launched tools to increase transparency of political advertising but there is a consensus among the public that the social media giant could do more to curb online hate. The letter also happens to be sent on the same day when EU officials stated that Internet giants (including Google and Facebook) have more than doubled the rate at which they fight hate speech online than when they joined the European Union’s voluntary approach in 2016.