Zuckerberg Won’t Step Down as Facebook Chairman, Still Supports Sheryl Sandberg Despite Criticism

Zuck is still dealing with the fallout from a bombshell New York Times report.

November 21, 2018 9:52 am
PARIS, FRANCE - MAY 24:  Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks to participants during the Viva Technologie show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris, France.  Viva Technology, the new international event brings together 5,000 startups with top investors, companies to grow businesses and all players in the digital transformation who shape the future of the internet.  (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - MAY 24: Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks to participants during the Viva Technologie show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris, France. Viva Technology, the new international event brings together 5,000 startups with top investors, companies to grow businesses and all players in the digital transformation who shape the future of the internet. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
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In an interview with CNN Business, Facebook chairman Mark Zuckerberg said he won’t be stepping down from his position in the wake of mounting criticism of the social media giant.

Zuckerberg also threw his support behind the firm’s No. 2 chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg despite criticism of her role in handling Facebook’s recent crises, many of which were brought to light in a damning New York Times report.

During the interview, Zuckerberg reiterated Facebook is a force for good and took shots at the unrelenting criticism of the company.

“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,” Zuckerberg 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 that’s all there is, and I don’t think that that’s right either.”

Zuckerberg previously pushed back against the NYT report last week, but did acknowledge there were things he should have done differently.

“I want to be very clear about one thing up front: I’ve said many times before that we were too slow to spot Russian interference,” Zuckerberg said. “We certainly stumbled along the way, but to suggest that we weren’t interested in knowing the truth, or that we wanted to hide what we knew or we wanted to prevent investigations is simply untrue. People have been working on this nonstop for more than a year.”

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