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Mark Zuckerberg Reportedly Ordered All Facebook Executives To Use Android Phones After Tim Cook Criticized Facebook (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the executive-order dept.

A new report from the New York Times sheds some light on what happened inside Facebook last year as the company was fighting numerous scandals, including Russian interference and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March. In addition to reportedly hiring a public relations firm to write dozens of articles critical of rivals Google and Apple, the social media company ordered Facebook executives to use Android phones, after Apple CEO Tim Cook criticized the company in an MSNBC interview for being a service that traffics "in your personal life." According to the report, the order came from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Verge reports: In those comments made back in March, Cook dismissed a question asking him what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg's shoes dealing with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal by saying, "I wouldn't be in this situation." Zuckerberg soon after retorted in an interview with Recode that he found Cook's comments to be "extremely glib," and that "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." While it's not clear how Cook's aggressive comments directly provoked Zuckerberg into issuing his Android-only order, it's still a rational decision to make Americans use Android. Android is the dominant operating system in many regions outside of the U.S., including South America, Europe, Russia, South Asia, and parts of the Middle East.

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Android? by kurkosdr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Which means Facebook employees have to use the Facebook App for Android, right? Maybe this will motivate them to fix it.

  2. No surprice that Facebook likes Android by luvirini · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As the privacy controls on iOS are better than Android(though the difference is a lot less than it used to be) and Facebook does not seem to like such things.

    1. Re: No surprice that Facebook likes Android by monkeyxpress · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it is more fundamental than that: The Android business model depends on harvesting your data, while Apple's does not (yet).

      Google can't really change that, since their whole existence depends on watching you on the internet, and Tim Cook has decided to make privacy a key product differentiator for Apple. So Google is fundamentally aligned with Facebook's business model, while Apple is becoming fundamentally opposed. Is there any surprise then that Zuckerberg would rather the world move towards Android?

      While I'm no fan of Tim Cook, I do think he is on the right path with the privacy thing. It is one of the main reasons I have little interest in moving over to Android. Google already has so much info on me, it just feels creepy to give them pretty much everything. I also hope he ties Apple up with enough promises to ensure that, like the 'stylus' thing, it becomes very hard for them to back track when (not if) they figure out they can make lots more money by harvesting data.

  3. Re: Adulting is hard by sh00z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do I know for a fact this article was written by a lieberal? Because he thinks it's right to force people to use android. Only a lieberal would make such a statement that flies in the face of core American values.

    I'm a raging liberal, and I think the submitter's editorial comment of "it's still a rational decision to make Americans use Android" is the dumbest hing I've heard this year from a person not named Donald John Trump. Why in the world would I want to use an operating system (phone, computer, television, social network) that monetizes my data?