Facebook CEO Fires Back Amid Apple CEO Criticism

With Facebook under intense criticism following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, the company’s Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is pushing back against criticism from Apple CEO Tim Cook.

CNBC, citing remarks Zuckerberg made during “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast, said the CEO argued that Tim Cook’s recent comments criticizing Facebook’s handling of the scandal with Cambridge Analytica and his questioning of the practice of monetizing user data on social media were “extremely glib.”

In the podcast published earlier on Monday (April 2), Zuckerberg said: “You know, I find that argument — that if you’re not paying … somehow we can’t care about you — to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth. The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can’t afford to pay.”

The CEO of the world’s largest social media company went on to argue that having an advertising-supported model is the “only rational model” that can support a service to reach people, noting that not every company that charges customers always has their best interests in mind. “To the contrary, I think it’s important that we don’t all get Stockholm Syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you. Because that sounds ridiculous to me,” he said.

Over the last two weeks, Facebook has been facing condemnation for a scandal with Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked on President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and accessed data from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge or consent. The data breach has sparked investigations both in the U.S. and the U.K. and spurred a sell-off of Facebook’s stock. Billions of dollars in market value have been erased as a result of the scandal and Facebook’s handling of it. Zuckerberg initially stayed silent but gave media interviews a couple of days later.