Tech

I have no plans to resign as Facebook chairman – Zuckerberg

Published

5 years ago

November 21, 2018

Embattled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he has no plans to resign , sounding defiant after a rough year for the social platform .
“ That ’ s not the plan , ” Zuckerberg told CNN Business when asked if he would consider stepping down as chairman .

He also defended Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg , who has drawn criticism over her handling of the social media giant ’ s recent crises .

“ Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts for a lot of the biggest issues we have, ” said Zuckerberg .

“ She ’ s been an important partner to me for 10 years . I ’ m really proud of the work we ’ ve done together and I hope that we work together for decades more to come . ”

Facebook has stumbled from one mess to another this year as it grappled with continuing fallout from Russia ’ s use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election , the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which user data was harnessed in a bid to help candidate Donald Trump , and a huge security breach involving millions of accounts .

Most recently , an investigative piece published last week by The New York Times said Facebook misled the public about what it knew about Russia ’ s election meddling and used a PR firm to spread negative stories about other Silicon Valley companies and thus deflect anger away from itself .

“ It is not clear to me at all that the report is right, ” Zuckerberg said of the Times article .

“ A lot of the things that were in that report , we talked to the reporters ahead of time and told them that from everything that we ’ d seen , that wasn ’ t true and they chose to print it anyway . ”

Zuckerberg also defended his company against the broader wave of flak it has taken this year .

“ A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair , but I do think that if we are going to be real , there is this bigger picture as well , which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us , ” he said .

“ There are big issues , and I ’ m not trying to say that there aren’ t … But I do think that sometimes , you can get the flavor from some of the coverage that ’ s all there is , and I don’ t think that that ’ s right either . ”

AFP .