NEW YORK: Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mark Zuckerberg, in a message to the public, has said Facebook is fine doing things that are unpopular, as long as people understand the reason behind it.
Zuckerberg said that his objective for the next decade is ‘not to be liked, but to be understood’.
His remarks come at a time when Facebook has in recent times come under scrutiny over its political advertising policies, according to CNN.
He said people should know where they stand in order to be trusted.
Facebook on Wednesday said, despite public criticism and scrutiny, it ended 2019 with 2.5 billion monthly users worldwide, which it claimed was an increase of 8 percent than the previous year.
It also said the company generated a revenue of about $21 billion, during the last three months of 2019, which it said was a 25 percent increase from the same period in 2018.
The company posted a $7.3 billion profit that represented single-digit percentage growth for the business.
Zuckerberg also said that one critique of the company’s approach for much of the last decade, according to CNN, was that because they wanted to be liked.
According to Zuckerberg, they didn’t constantly communicate their views as clearly because they were ‘worried about offending people’.
Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at eMarketer, said notwithstanding all of the concerns that have been swirling around Facebook, it beat expectations on revenue.
“This demonstrated continued growth in its user base,” Williamson said in a statement after the earnings results on Wednesday.
Williamson added it was a company that has exhibited to withstand the criticism of its practices and yet still pull out gains in both users and revenue.
Across Facebook’s suite of apps that include WhatsApp, and Instagram, Facebook reported having 2.89 billion monthly active users, which is an increase of 9 percent over last year.
However, the Facebook stock dipped 7 percent after the earnings results, according to CNN.
The company also faces antitrust scrutiny and concerns from lawmakers over how it handles user data.
The New York Attorney General announced in October 2019, that 47 state Attorneys Generals were investigating Facebook for evidence of anti-competitive practices. (Agencies)
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