PALO ALTO, U.S. -- Mark Zuckerberg said there is a "coordinated effort" to misrepresent Facebook's efforts to protect its users as the U.S. social media giant's earnings figures on Monday again showed the Asia-Pacific region leading in user growth.
Figures for the quarter ended Sept. 30 came shortly after leaked internal documents detailing the company's decision-making process on issues such as misinformation, extremism and hate speech were widely reported on Monday.
The files were part of the disclosures made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by whistleblower Frances Haugen, who worked as a product manager in the company until May and has testified in the U.S. Congress and U.K. Parliament that Facebook puts profit over policing the platform.
"My view is that what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company," Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks at an earnings call.
He added that Facebook is "the most effective" social media platform at reducing harmful content and that the company should not be solely blamed for issues such as political polarization and intolerance.
"I also think that any honest account [about Facebook] should be clear that these issues aren't primarily about social media. That means that no matter what Facebook does, we're never going to solve them on our own," Zuckerberg said.
For the three months ended Sept. 30, Facebook reported $29 billion in revenue, up 35% year over year. It registered $9.2 billion in net income, up 17% compared to the same period last year.
After closing 1.3% higher on Monday, Facebook shares rose another 1% during after-hours trading.
Facebook reached 1.93 billion daily active users in the quarter, with the Asia-Pacific region continuing to be the bright spot for user growth, topping 800 million for the first time, an increase of 17 million. The U.S.-Canada region and Europe registered growth of only 1 million each.
The Asia-Pacific region now makes up more than 40% of the company's daily active users and is its largest region. However, revenue growth slowed in the quarter, with a 29.1% year-over-year jump to $5.5 billion, compared with growth of 34.3% in North America and 36.3% in Europe.
The social media giant warned that it faces more revenue headwinds in the upcoming quarter, primarily due to privacy changes made by Apple.
The iPhone maker added new privacy features on its iOS 14 operating system and later-generation software that give users the ability to block certain tracking features. The changes are impacting advertisers, including Facebook, that heavily relied on the function for targeted ads.
Facebook is guiding to quarterly revenue figures ending in December in the range of $31.5 billion to $34 billion.
"Our outlook reflects the significant uncertainty we face in the fourth quarter in light of continued headwinds from Apple's iOS 14 changes, and macroeconomic and COVID-related factors," Facebook said in the earnings release.