Apple CEO Tim Cook says Facebook cannot avoid regulation

Mr Cook has joined other technology executive's in criticising Facebook in the wake of a data privacy scandal

Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested he would not have repeated Mark Zuckerberg's mistakes (AFP/Getty Images)

Apple CEO Tim Cook continued to call for more regulation of Facebook in the wake of a data privacy scandal, suggesting CEO Mark Zuckerberg had failed to protect users.

“I wouldn’t be in this situation”, Mr Cook said after being asked what he would do in Mr Zuckerberg’s position in an excerpt of a forthcoming interview with reporters from Recode and MSNBC.

Technology executives like have joined elected officials and in blasting Facebook for allowing a researcher to pass data covering millions of users to Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Breaking with his industry’s usual wariness of regulation, Mr Cook has repeatedly endorsed imposing stricter privacy rules on Facebook.

“I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation,” Mr Cook said in the interview. “However, I think we’re beyond that here.”

Last weekend, Mr Cook said “some large profound change is needed”, telling attendees at an event in Beijing that “this certain situation is so dire, and has become so large, that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary”.

Other technology executives have aligned themselves with calls to renounce Facebook use altogether. WhatsApp founder Brian Acton, whose company was acquired by Facebook in 2014, tweeted the hashtag “#DeleteFacebook” along with the phrase “it is time”.

Tesla took down its Facebook pages after Elon Musk told Twitter users that he did not use the site and that his company does not purchase Facebook advertisements, saying the social media platform “gives me the Willies”.

With political pressure ratcheting up, multiple Facebook executives have taken an conciliatory stance to the possibility of more regulation. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in an interview that the company was “open to regulation” and cited Mr Zuckerberg’s belief that “‘it’s not a question of ‘if regulation’, it’s a question of ‘what type’”.

“I actually am not sure we shouldn’t be regulated”, Mr Zuckerberg told CNN in his first public interview since the scandal broke.

He said he would “love to see” more transparency around political advertisements and noted that Facebook had committed to releasing more information about paid political posts, a push announced after members of Congress introduced a bill mandating more disclosure.