When asked in an interview what he would do if he were faced with the current problems of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cook said: „I wouldn’t be in this position.“
Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized Facebook in an interview on Wednesday in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, saying that privacy is a human right and a core American value.
When asked what he would do if he were currently faced with the problems confronting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Cook said: „I wouldn’t be in this position.“
Cook made the comments in an interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, a day after Apple revealed a new affordable iPad model that supports Apple Pencil and revamped education software.
Cook said that Apple has never believed that detailed online profiles of people should exist. „We can make a ton of money if customers were our product. We have elected not to do that,“ Cook said.
Zuckerberg has come under fire for Facebook’s privacy practices in the wake of revelations that Cambridge Analytica improperly gained access to data from more than 50 million user profiles. Cook said that companies have to think about how profiles can be abused, but he encouraged users to take matters into their own hands, saying the best kind of regulation is self-regulation.
Facebook is now the subject of investigations on both sides of the Atlantic. The Federal Trade Commission announced on Monday that it’s looking into Facebook’s data practices. An investigation is also underway in the United Kingdom. Facebook has said it learned of Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data in 2015, but failed to notify the public until reports by the The Observer newspaper in the United Kingdom and The New York Times were published earlier this month. Zuckerberg subsequently issued a mea culpa. „We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,“ he said.
