Zuckerberg has asked his management team to use only Android phones. (Source: AP)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly asked his management team to start using only Android phones. Android is the more popular operating system in many regions outside of the US, including South America, Europe, Russia, South Asia, and parts of the Middle East. The Facebook CEO has issued this order to his executives after Apple CEO Tim Cook made public comments about the social media company’s Cambridge Analytica data scandal, according to The New York Times.

“We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” Cook said, referencing the scandal in an MSNBC interview. “Privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.”

The comment didn’t go well with Zuckerberg who has asked his management team to use only Android phones because that operating system has higher usage worldwide than Apple’s iPhone OS. It is not clear if the team has actually followed the instruction and snubbed the Apple smartphones.

In March, Cook had also dismissed the question on what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg’s shoes dealing with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal by saying, “I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

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Zuckerberg had responded to this statement in an interview with Recode, saying that he found Cook’s comments to be ‘extremely glib’. “I think it’s important that we don’t all get Stockholm syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you. Because that sounds ridiculous to me,” he had said.

Facebook had come under scrutiny earlier this year after The Guardian and The New York Times published accounts of how Cambridge Analytica, a digital consultancy hired by the Trump presidential campaign, improperly mined personal details from 87 million Facebook users without their permission.

Apple, on the other hand, has been vocal about privacy concerns. In multiple interviews, Cook has talked about the dangers of social media and other free online services. In the MSNBC interview, Cook said his company purposely chose privacy over profit by refusing to sell customer data.

“The truth is, we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer – if our customer was our product,” Cook said. “We’ve elected not to do that.”