Facebook Admits It ‘Encourages’ Employees to Use Android Smartphones, Not iPhones

By Todd Spangler

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Facebook has a semi-official ban on employees using Apple’s iPhones — allegedly because of Mark Zuckerberg’s ire at CEO Tim Cook.

According to the New York Times’ damning report on ’s tactics targeting company critics and stonewalling on dealing with multiple scandals, Zuckerberg ordered his management team to use only Android smartphones. Per the NYT, that came in response to comments Cook make slamming Facebook  in an MSNBC interview earlier this year in the wake of revelations that Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained info on millions of Facebook users. Cook said “privacy to us is a human right” and added that Apple could “make a ton of money” if it chose to monetize customer data as Facebook does.

Facebook, as part of its response to the Times piece , acknowledged that it has a policy of promoting usage of Android phones over Apple’s iPhones.

“[W]e’ve long encouraged our employees and executives to use Android because it is the most popular operating system in the world,” Facebook said in a statement Thursday.

Facebook also said, “Tim Cook has consistently criticized our business model and Mark has been equally clear he disagrees.”

As part of its anti-Apple smear campaign, according to the Times report, it hired a D.C.-area political PR firm called Definers Public Affairs. A right-leaning news site called the NTK Network, affiliated with Definers, published “dozens of articles” that criticized Apple as well as Google “for unsavory business practices,” including one that slammed Cook for hypocrisy over his stance on privacy, per the New York Times.

Facebook said it ended its contract with Definers on Wednesday, Nov. 14, after the Times report was published, but the company didn’t offer an explicit reason for terminating its association with the PR firm. According to Facebook, the Times report incorrectly suggested “that we ever asked Definers to pay for or write articles on Facebook’s behalf — or to spread misinformation.”

Pictured above: Google’s Pixel 3 line of Android smartphones