Facebook will take "a few years" to fix issues, says CEO Mark Zuckerberg

facebook will likely need "a few years" to fix the problems uncovered by the revelations on the hijacking of private user data, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview released Monday.

Speaking to the news site Vox, Zuckerberg defended the company's business model and shot back at criticism of the social networking giant from Apple CEO Tim Cook last week.

"I find that argument -- that if you're not paying that somehow we can't care about you, to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth," he said.

"The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can't afford to pay. And therefore, as with a lot of media, having an advertising-supported model is the only rational model."

The interview was the latest by the Facebook chief aimed at blunting the impact of a scandal over the harvesting of personal data on 50 million users by a political firm linked to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic have launched investigations into the mishandling of user data and have been seeking Zuckerberg's testimony.

Devesh Ojha