Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has advice for Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg

Apple cofounder Steve
Wozniak.
Justin Sullivan/Getty
Images

• Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak has some advice for
  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 
• His comments came before the bombshell New York Times
  report that detailed Facebook’s efforts to combat criticism and
  negative coverage. 
• Wozniak said Facebook should put people above
  technology, give users more options on how their data is used,
  and open itself up to competition. 

Steve Wozniak doesn’t mince his words when it comes to
Facebook. 

During interviews with CNBC and at the CME Group’s Global
Financial Leadership Conference in Naples, Florida, the Apple
cofounder had some advice for Facebook and its CEO, Mark
Zuckerberg. His comments came a few days before the
bombshell New York Times report that detailed how Facebook
has tried to combat criticism and negative coverage in the
past. 

Wozniak said Facebook needs to “remember that people matter
more than technology and stop putting money before morals,”
according to NBC reporter Dylan Byers, who paraphrased
his interview with Wozniak in a tweet.

In a
separate interview with CNBC, Wozniak gave some specific
recommendations and criticism for the social media giant, which
has faced various crises in the last year.

“They won’t do one thing that will cost them a penny,” Wozniak
said to CNBC. “I haven’t seen one step. I’ve seen Zuckerberg talk
about ‘We’ll do this, we’ll make this open, we’ll give you more
options” — I haven’t seen them do one real thing.” 

Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg.
Photo by Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images

Wozniak added that Facebook should be more clear with its
advertising policies.

“One thing they should do is, if you’re going to be on targeted
advertising lists, give you the option to pay your way out of
it,” Wozniak said. “Or at least tell you what lists you’re on —
what categories they put you in out of thousands of categories
and you can check or uncheck them. Or you can say ‘I don’t want
to be on any targeted lists at all.’ And they should not keep
that sort of data just from every sort of post.”

Wozniak had another, slightly more far-fetched idea that he
admitted the company would likely never adopt. He said Facebook
should open itself up to competition by allowing users to export
their data — including timelines, friends, and posts — and move
it to another competing social media site. 

“I get sick of all executives when I hear diverting around any
real answers or issues, or even any real promises or real action
that would help people,” Wozniak said. “I’m always for the end
consumer — the little guy over the big, strong, wealthy company
or person.”

Read more: Mark
Zuckerberg made his executives use Android phones after Tim Cook
slammed Facebook’s approach to privacy

Wozniak has spoken publicly about Facebook in the past, most
recently when he announced in April that he planned to quit
Facebook because he didn’t think the company
respected user privacy or data. 

“Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and …
Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this,” Wozniak
wrote in an
email to USA Today at the time. “The profits are all
based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits
back.

“Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As
they say, with Facebook, you are the product.”

Wozniak isn’t the only person related to Apple who has taken
shots at Facebook while playing up Apple’s strengths in
privacy. Apple CEO Tim Cook has been
voicing a similar argument since 2014, and recently said in
an interview he would never be in the situation Facebook and
Zuckerberg are in now.