Zuckerberg slams Apple CEO Tim Cook's comments on Facebook as 'extremely glib'

pulse

April 2, 2018 11:56 AM

Mark Zuckerberg fired back at Tim Cook after the Apple CEO criticized Facebook amid a burgeoning scandal around the company's data practices.

Mark Zuckerberg has fired back at Tim Cook after the Apple CEO criticized Facebook amid a burgeoning scandal around the company's data practices and its role in political campaigns.
Cook said Apple was better off for charging its customers and not selling them to advertisers, and he called privacy a human right.
But Zuckerberg called Cook's comments "extremely glib" and said that, as a free service, Facebook did care about its users while companies like Apple couldn't argue the same.

Mark Zuckerberg has fired back at Tim Cook after the Apple CEO criticized Facebook amid a burgeoning scandal around the company's data practices and its role in political campaigns.

Cook told Recode's Kara Swisher last week that "privacy to us is a human right" and a "civil liberty" and that ultimately, because Facebook is a free service, the users become the products that are then sold to advertisers, something he thinks Apple is better off for not doing.

But on Vox's latest "The Ezra Klein Show" podcast, Zuckerberg pointedly dismissed Cook's ideas about Facebook.

"You know, I find that argument, that if you're not paying that somehow we can't care about you, to be extremely glib," Zuckerberg said. "And not at all aligned with the truth."

Zuckerberg contended that Facebook's mission of connecting the world meant it had to provide service to those who couldn't pay, and he said advertising naturally lent itself to the business model but Facebook still cared about people and their rights.

Instead, Zuckerberg challenged how a company like Apple, which does charge its users, could argue that it cared about its customers.

"If you want to build a service which is not just serving rich people, then you need to have something people can afford," Zuckerberg said.

"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," he said. "Because that sounds ridiculous to me."

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