Mark Zuckerberg Admits He's Always Had a Hard Time Expressing Himself: 'I Come Across as Robotic'
Mark Zuckerberg is getting candid about the way he comes off to others.
During an interview on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt that aired on Monday, the Facebook co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer, 35, admitted that he’s had a particularly difficult time communicating with others about his company.
Though he acknowledged that he may struggle with his social skills, Zuckerberg said that he’s working to improve himself and get his messages across effectively in better ways.
“Look, historically I’ve had a very hard time expressing myself,” he shared. “I just come across as robotic.”
“This is one of the things that in growing up I need to get — I need to get better at in running this company,” he added.
Zuckerberg believes part of the reason he’s had trouble connecting with others is due to the fact he’s been a public figure for so long and has heard a number of false rumors about himself.
“I’ve been in the public eye since I was 19,” he explained. “And a lot of my personal experience has been that people say a lot of false things about you.”
But it’s not just a personal motive that’s driving him to be better. The Facebook CEO is also inspired by his daughters — Maxima, 3, and August, 2 — whom he shares with wife Dr. Priscilla Chan.
“Of course, I want to know that when my girls grow up, that they’re going to be able to say that their dad made the world better and stood up for what he believed in,” he told Holt.
Zuckerberg’s conversation on NBC Nightly News comes as the tech mogul prepares to launch several election security measures on Facebook, including labeling state-controlled media outlets, identifying organizations and owners behind pages, and having content rated false by independent fact-checkers.
The social networking platform was publicly scrutinized following accusations that fake news shared on the platform influenced the 2016 election.
“We were looking for more traditional threats like hacking, but we weren’t looking for these kinds of coordinated information campaigns that now we’re aware of,” Zuckerberg explained of how the integrity of the 2016 election managed to get compromised.
The Facebook CEO also said that his company was already working to “proactively identify” and “take down” any foreign actors who are attempting to influence the 2020 election.
“I believe that it is important for people to be able to hear and see what politicians are saying,” Zuckerberg said. “That speech will be heavily scrutinized by other people [and] by other journalists.”
In March 2018, Zuckerberg addressed the 2016 scandal and revealed that his platform was working on improvements to ensure it never happened again.
“What’s clear is that in 2016 we were not as on top of a number of issues as we should have, whether it was Russian interference or fake news,” Zuckerberg said. “The reality here is that this isn’t rocket science, I mean there’s a lot of hard work that we need to do to make it harder for nation-states like Russia to do election interference, to make it so that trolls and other folks can’t spread fake news.”
Zuckerberg also predicted that another Russian interference could be possible — but reassured that his company was on top of any attempts.
“I’m sure someone’s trying, right? I’m sure that there’s v-2, version two, of whatever the Russian effort was in 2016, I’m sure they’re working on that. And there are going to be some new tactics that we need to make sure that we observe and get in front of,” he said.
