Tim Cook: Russian ads aren’t to blame for U.S. election results

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Tim Cook
Cook thinks there are bigger issues to deal with.
Photo: NBC

The tech and political worlds may be buzzing over claims that Russian ads helped influence the U.S. presidential election, but one person who’s not so quick to jump on board with the theory is Apple CEO Tim Cook.

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, which aired Wednesday night, Cook poured cold water on the suggestion by arguing that such ads make up an absolutely tiny part of the larger issue as to why people in the U.S. are so divided in their politics.

“I don’t believe that the big issue are ads from foreign government,” Cook said. “I believe that’s like .1 percent of the issue. 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 went on to describe this as the “no. 1 through 10” issue.

The interview aired the same day that representatives from Silicon Valley tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google were grilled by the House Intelligence Committee over their supposed failure to stop millions of people from seeing Russian ads ahead of the elections. Facebook has said that that the number of ads bought by “bad actors” was small, but that “any amount was too much.”

“We’ll probably learn more in those hearings as to the particulars,” Cook continued. “But I do think that technology itself doesn’t want to be good. It doesn’t want to be anything. It’s up to the creator of the technology and the user of the technology to make it good.”

During the 2016 presidential election, Tim Cook was a supporter of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. At one point, he teamed up with the Hillary Victory Fund to host a fundraiser, with tickets costing anywhere up to $50,000, and was even briefly considered as a possible VP running mate for Clinton — although this never materialized.

Source: NBC

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