Facebook has hired a former deputy prime minister of Britain to lead its global affairs.

Nick Clegg, who served as deputy PM under David Cameron, will join Facebook as vice president of global affairs and communications.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg announced the appointment in a post on the social media platform on Friday.

She wrote: “[Nick Clegg] is a thoughtful and gifted leader who has served as a Member of the European Parliament, a British MP and Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, and understands deeply the responsibilities we have to people who use our service around the world.

She added: “Our company is on a critical journey. The challenges we face are serious and clear and now more than ever we need new perspectives to help us through this time of change.

“The opportunities are clear too. Every day people use our apps to connect with family and friends and make a difference in their communities. If we can honor the trust they put in us and live up to our responsibilities, we can help more people use technology to do good.

“That’s what motivates our teams and from all my conversations with Nick, it’s clear that he believes in this as well.

“Big welcome for Nick to Facebook – and for Nick’s family to California.”

Nick posted to a video of himself to announce the hire.

The appointment follows a spate of criticism thrown at Facebook surrounding the social media giant’s interference in politics.

Specifically, Facebook’s election meddling, a hangover from the 2016 US Presidential Election.

Just last week, Facebook announced it was taking a harder stance on election meddling, with a news release titled ‘Fighting Election Interference in Real Time’.

It said: “In September, ahead of the Brazilian and US elections, we opened our first physical elections war room in Menlo Park, California.

“Our goal: to get the right subject-matter experts from across the company in one place so they can address potential problems identified by our technology in real time and respond quickly.

“The war room has over two dozen experts from across the company – including from our threat intelligence, data science, software engineering, research, community operations and legal teams.”