LIVE FROM WEB SUMMIT 2021: Nick Clegg, VP of global affairs and communications at Meta (pictured, left), shrugged off accusations the company profited from harmful content on its platforms and failed to protect users.

Addressing accusations a former staff member made in October, Clegg hightlighted pledges around transparancy, child research and regulation while refuting claims Meta amplifies political unrest and harms children.

Clegg noted advertisers don’t want to feature “next to unpleasant content”, and pointed to in-house research showing “users won’t continue to use our products if they are getting a bad experience”.

“I don’t think riling people up into a sort of semi-permanent state of fury is the best way of actually having people look at ads and have a pleasant experience”.

Clegg highlighted pledges to invest billions into tracking harmful content and emphasised such posts accounted for a fraction of Meta’s total.

The executive argued the former employee’s accusations spurred Meta’s transparancy efforts and could promote “sensible regulation”.

He noted content moderation now occurred in more than 70 countries and explained the recent rebrand to Meta had been months in the making.

“We’re on this evolutionary curve and the company has been investing billions of dollars into metaverse technologies”, a process he said would be “as open as possible”.