Inside Facebook

The tech press, including us, didn’t get the memo until this week, but Facebook has hired National Journal tech-politics reporter Andrew Noyes to be its head of public policy communications. He’ll be based in Washington, D.C., where he’ll be working with Anthony Sparapani, the American Civil Liberties lawyer that Facebook hired away to run the public policy team earlier this year.

As Facebook grows around the US and the world, it has been beefing up its DC representation, as Google and other Silicon Valley technology have already done. On a somewhat related noted, it has also started making more public statements about larger technology issues, such as signing on to a letter supporting pending net neutrality legislation.

Here’s more, from the email that Facebook sent to its employees about the hire, via TechCrunch:

As Facebook continues to innovate and grow — with a rapidly growing user community of more than 300 million — it is important that we expand our capability to explain to policymakers, the press and the public how we enable people to share in a more trusted environment, help make the world more connected, and drive economic growth. Specific policy issues on the agenda for Andrew and the rest of Facebook’s DC office include enhancing cybersecurity and online safety, expanding digital privacy protection through user control of data, and protecting free speech.

Also, despite reports to the contrary, Noyes said he first mentioned the move on Facebook, not on Twitter. He’ll begin his new job in the middle of next month.