Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Apple CEO Tim Cook’s comments about Facebook privacy issues “extremely glib” and not “aligned with the truth” in a podcast interview.
Cook last week criticized Facebook in an MSNBC interview, saying he “wouldn’t be” in the situation Facebook was in because Apple has chosen not to monetize the customer the way Facebook has.
“You know, I find that argument, that if you’re not paying, that somehow we don’t care about you to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth,” Zuckerberg said in an interview on "The Ezra Klein Show" podcast.
“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,” he continued, adding that a model based on advertising sales is “the only rational model that can support building this service to reach people.”
Facebook has battled pushback that has cost it 12 percent of its value since mid-March over revelations that user data obtained through the Facebook app was improperly given to data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica and used during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Zuckerberg has apologized for the events and said Facebook would look for possible personal data abuses by app developers going forward.
Zuckerberg refused to allow Cook to characterize Facebook as uncaring because of how its business model is structured, however.
“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 about you,” he said in a dig at Apple, which has been criticized for the high cost of its devices.
Twitter users had varying opinions about the comments.
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