Nick Clegg’s Facebook bosses under fire over Sudanese child bride auction

A teenage girl has been auctioned off for marriage via Facebook in South Sudan, in what has been called a “barbaric use of technology” by children’s rights organisation Plan International.

The auction held for the girl (aged 16 or 17, her age is not yet verified) earned the family 500 cows, three Toyota Land Cruisers and $10,000 in dowry. Five men participated in the auction, some of whom were high ranking government officials, Plan International reported.

CNN broke the story this month, adding to the public relations woes of a digital giant already under attack from politicians demanding increased regulation of Facebook and other firms.

Facebook’s shares have taken a sustained hit as a result. In July they peaked at $217.50 per share on the Nasdaq. Today they were trading at $131.50.

This week some smaller investors called on the firm’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to step down as chairman. “Facebook is behaving like it’s a special snowflake,” said Jonas Kron of Trillium Asset Management. “It’s not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO.”

Adding to the pressure, the hosting of an online slavery auction raises multiple ethical questions about Facebook’s procedures for taking down questionable material. As George Otim, Country Director of Plan International South Sudan, said: “This barbaric use of technology is reminiscent of latter-day slave markets. That a girl could be sold for marriage on the world’s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief.”

Facebook has said the post was removed as soon as they learned about it, but this was not until after the girl was married. “Any form of human trafficking whether posts, pages, ads or groups that co-ordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook,” a spokesman said.

Other campaigners expressed concern that this could set a dangerous precedent, whereby other families could use social media to seek greater dowries for their daughters.

Not the best time to be Mark Zuckerberg then. Just last week a New York Times investigation revealed that their public affairs firm had been disseminating negative opinion about Facebook’s main rivals to journalists. Notably, many pieces began cropping up about liberal philanthropist George Soros, some of which were deemed to be anti-semitic in nature.

All this and more is in Nick Clegg’s in tray. The UK’s former deputy Prime Minister is still fresh in his new role as vice-president of global communications and affairs at Facebook in California. With the tech giants facing new regulation, from sources such as the European Commission in Brussels, Clegg’s status as a pro-EU favoured son of the Brussels machine will come in handy.

Yet Clegg has also been tasked with investigating Facebook’s links to lobbyists – a case of corporate lobbyist investigate thyself.

There has been quite a bit of “who is this guy?” scepticism from investors and commentators. Questions have been asked about how much clout he will have considering he reports to Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer.

The Telegraph reports Julie Goodridge, chief executive of Facebook investor NorthStar Asset Management, saying: “I don’t think you can appoint someone who is essentially still subservient to the board and subservient to top level management… You can’t expect that person to come in and really have the kind of power that Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Peter Thiel and the other board members have. What powers is this guy really going to have?”

Good question.

To the list of difficult tasks Clegg can now add explaining how a child bride auction got on Facebook in the first place and then stayed there for so long.