By Lucia Binding, news reporter
There is "absolutely no evidence" that Russia influenced the Brexit result by using Facebook, Sir Nick Clegg has said.
The tech giant's vice president said Facebook has run two full analyses of the data it held in the run-up to the 2016 referendum, and found no "significant attempt" by outside forces to influence the vote's outcome.
Sir Nick argued on BBC Radio 4 that "the roots to British euroscepticism go very deep".
Brexit opponents have repeatedly questioned whether the Kremlin played a role in the vote by promoting stories online on issues including immigration in a bid to sway opinion.
The UK says it has found no evidence that Russia interfered in the referendum – and Moscow has repeatedly denied even attempting to do so.
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Sir Nick told the Today programme: "Much though I understand why people want to sort of reduce that eruption in British politics to some kind of plot or conspiracy – or some use of new social media through opaque means – I'm afraid the roots to British euroscepticism go very, very deep."
He also dismissed claims that Cambridge Analytica swayed the public's decision to vote Leave.
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The data firm gained unauthorised access to the data of up to 87 million users via a personality quiz app.
The former deputy prime minister claimed attitudes had been influenced far more by "traditional media" over the past four decades than by new media.
However, Sir Nick has called for more regulation of Facebook and other tech giants – indicating that the implementation of new rules is not something they "can or should" do on their own.
"It's not for private companies, however big or small, to come up with those rules. It is for democratic politicians in the democratic world to do so," he said.
Sir Nick, who joined Facebook in October 2018, said there was a "pressing need" for new rules on privacy, Read More – Source
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