Misinformation and "fake news to broad numbers of people" are a bigger issue than ads placed by foreign governments, Apple CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday told NBC News.
"I believe that's like 0.1 percent of the issue," Cook told Lester Holt of of the ads. "The bigger issue is that some of these trolls are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to people in broad numbers, and so to influence their thinking."
"And this, to me, is the No. 1 through 10 issue."
A group known as the Internet Research Agency, which U.S. intelligence says is a "state-funded organization that blogs on tweets on behalf of the Kremlin," purchased over 3,000 Facebook ads which focused on racial issues, the LGBT movement, gun rights, and illegal immigrants designed to disrupt the 2016 presidential election and further divide an already polarized nation.
Facebook in early October turned those over to Congress.
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have come under scrutiny for issues related to Russian political ads. Representatives from each company were grilled Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee about their responses to Russian interference in the 2016 election, with lawmakers saying they were slow in investigating and responding to meddling and were not doing enough to stop the spread of disinformation.
Cook said the companies have learned "along the way a lot" since the election.
"We'll probably learn more in those hearings as to the particulars," Cook said. "But I do think that technology itself doesn't want to be good. It doesn't want to be anything. It's up to the creator of the technology and the user of the technology to make it good."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.