Facebook hires Clinton’s former press secretary
FACEBOOK has hired Bill Clinton’s former press secretary to head up its policy and corporate comms team.
Joe Lockhart was the chief spokesman and senior adviser to President Clinton between 1998 and 2000.
Lockhart is the latest marquee appointment for the world’s largest social network. In May it hired two former officials who worked for former President George W Bush, including Joel Kaplan, who served as Bush’s deputy chief of staff.
A Facebook spokesman said: “His experience building and running a press office at the White House gives him particular appreciation for the demands of a global 24-hour news cycle and the challenges of responding effectively to intense scrutiny.”
Lockhart will initially be based in Washington DC before moving out to Facebook’s headquarters in California.
The appointment comes as Facebook is increasingly in the spotlight for its privacy practices.
Facebook last month shed 6m users in the US to fall below 150m and lost a further 100,000 in the UK. Canada, Russia and Norway also registered a similar fall, according to data gathered by a Facebook marketing tool.