Gary Cohn: Pre-crash banks were ‘more responsible citizens’ than Facebook

Gary
Cohn.

Jim
Young/Reuters

• Trump’s ex-chief economic advisor says banks were “more
  responsible citizens” prior to the 2008 financial crisis than
  some social media companies are today.
• Gary Cohn singled out Facebook and how it was used to
  criticise banks at the time, but is now facing its own
  woes.
• Cohn was president and COO of Goldman Sachs between
  2006-17, so he plenty of experience in these matters — but he’s
  not the most impartial judge.

Gary Cohn, Donald Trump’s former chief economic advisor and the
president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs during the
2007-8 financial crisis, has some harsh words for Facebook and
other social media companies.

The social network,
Bloomberg reports Cohn said at an event on Saturday, is even
less of a responsible citizen than the big banks were prior to
the financial crisis.

“In ’08 Facebook was one of those companies that was a big
platform to criticize banks, they were very out front of
criticizing banks for not being responsible citizens,” the banker
said.

“I think banks were more responsible citizens in ’08 than some of
the social media companies are today. And it affects everyone in
the world. The banks have never had that much pull.”

Facebook has been reeling these past few months, trying to
recover from a chain of scandals — from political firm Cambridge
Analytica’s misappropriation of tens of millions of users’ data,
to the social network’s role in the spread of disinformation and
scandals. (Cohn’s remarks were reportedly focused on election
influence and fake news.)

The company is now trying to emphasise that it has turned a
corner. CEO Mark Zuckerberg now holds the line that Facebook
“takes a broader view of our responsibilities” than it has in the
past, and it has made a number of changes to its features and
products. But not everyone is convinced.

The remarks by Cohn, who was at the helm of Goldman Sachs between
2006 and 2017 and advisor to Trump between 2017 and 2018,
illustrate that some people treading the corridors of power are
viewing Facebook’s public pledges to change with
skepticism. 

But it’s worth noting that given his old job, Cohn might not be
considered the most impartial judge of whether or not the banks
were “responsible citizens” prior to the crash.

A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business
Insider’s request for comment.

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