Mark Zuckerberg said this was not the time for him to quit as Facebook shares ended at $132.43 -- down 40 per cent from its peak in July.
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Last week, Facebook investors increased pressure on Mark
Zuckerberg to step down as Chairman.
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SAN FRANCISCO:
Despite mounting pressure from
investors to step down as Facebook chairman as the social media firm faces
intense scrutiny on data scandals, Mark Zuckerberg has said he has no plans to
retire.
In an interview with CNN late on
Tuesday, he said this was not the time for him to quit as Facebook shares ended
at $132.43 -- down 40 per cent from its peak in July.
"That's not the plan. I'm
not going to be doing this forever, but I'm not currently thinking that makes
sense," said the Facebook CEO.
The interview came after the New
York Times reported how Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg "ignored
warning signs" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and hired a
Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm to "dig up dirt" on
competitors.
"I do run the company. I am
responsible for everything that happens here. I don't think this point was
about a specific PR firm; it's about how we act," Zuckerberg said during
the interview.
The Times report also suggested
that Facebook knew about Russian influence activities on its platform as early
as spring 2016.
Facebook hired a firm called
Definers Public Affairs to retaliate against or spread inflammatory information
about its critics.
Elliot Schrage, Facebook's
outgoing Head of Public Policy, has reportedly taken the blame for hiring the
Definers.
According to a memo with
TechCrunch, Schrage admitted having the company push negative narratives about
competitors but denies asking or paying Definers to publish fake news.
Facebook didn't confirm the memo.
In the interview, Zuckerberg said
there's no doubt that "we missed something really important" when it
came to the Russian interference during the 2016 US election.
"It was not something we
were expecting. I wish we understood it before 2016, before the Russians tried
to do these information operations in the first place," he added.
Last week, Facebook
investors increased pressure on Zuckerberg to step down as Chairman.
According to a report in The
Guardian, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which
owns a substantial stake in Facebook, "called on Zuckerberg to step down
as board chairman in the wake of the report".
"Facebook is behaving like
it's a special snowflake. It's not. It is a company and companies need to have
a separation of chair and CEO," Kron was quoted as saying.
Another Facebook investor Natasha
Lamb from Arjuna Capital said the combined role of chairman and chief executive
means that "Facebook can avoid properly fixing problems inside the
company.
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