Apple CEO Tim Cook: Russian Facebook ads didn’t elect President Trump

“As Washington lawmakers investigate how Russia exploited social media to influence the 2016 presidential election, Apple CEO Tim Cook says the tech giants have something much greater to be concerned about,” Erik Ortiz reports for NBC News. “‘I don’t believe that the big issue are ads from foreign government. I believe that’s like .1 percent of the issue,’ Cook told NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt in an exclusive interview that aired Wednesday night.”

“‘The bigger issue is that some of these tools are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to people in broad numbers, and so, to influence their thinking,’ Cook said. ‘And this, to me, is the No. 1 through 10 issue,'” Ortiz reports. “In an interview from Apple’s sprawling new Cupertino, California, headquarters, Cook also spoke about customers’ privacy in the age of the internet as well as the release Friday of the iPhone X, the latest incarnation of the company’s flagship product.”

“Apple’s Silicon Valley peers remained in the spotlight Wednesday as members of the House Intelligence Committee grilled representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Google for their inability to prevent Russia from exposing millions of Americans to ads meant to undermine last year’s election,” Ortiz reports. “The tech giants told lawmakers that steps were installed to prevent such meddling again, including the shutting down of suspect accounts. Cook, in his interview with Holt, said the social media companies have ‘learned along the way a lot’ since the election. ‘We’ll probably learn more in those hearings as to the particulars. But I do think that technology itself doesn’t want to be good. It doesn’t want to be anything,’ Cook said. ‘It’s up to the creator of the technology and the user of the technology to make it good.'”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: By SteveJack

If political ads determine your vote, you shouldn’t be voting.

Take it from someone who has, prior to this gig, produced and edited hundreds of political ads for TV.

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Apple CEO Cook: ‘Fake news’ is ‘killing people’s minds’ – February 11, 2017