Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes is urging the federal government to break up Facebook and reverse its purchases of encrypted messaging service WhatsApp and photo-sharing platform Instagram.
“We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be,” Hughes wrote in a Thursday op-ed for the New York Times that criticized one-time partner Mark Zuckerberg, who’s now CEO. “Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American.”
Hughes, who helped Zuckerberg start Facebook from their Harvard dorm room in 2004, provided a road map through the company’s history and explosive growth, and lamented the influence Zuckerberg amassed through his control of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
“Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithm to determine what people see in their News Feed, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered,” Hughes wrote. “He sets the rules for how to distinguish violent and incendiary speech from the merely offensive, and he can choose to shut down a competitor by acquiring, blocking or copying it.”
While Hughes describes Zuckerberg as a “good, kind person,” he said his former colleague’s “focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”
Hughes, whose history with the company gives him a unique vantage point, joins both Democratic and Republican lawmakers taking aim at Facebook, which boasts more than 2.3 billion monthly users worldwide. Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 contender, suggested breaking up the company in March, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has proposed antitrust action against Silicon Valley firms more broadly.
“We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook,” Hughes wrote. “We just seem to have forgotten about them.”
Based in Menlo Park, Calif., the company has been rocked by recent scandals involving its handling of user data and the proliferation of harmful content, and conservatives have accused it of censoring them. It’s in the crosshairs of federal and international regulators over its privacy practices and is preparing for a $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission.
Zuckerberg himself called for tighter regulation in a Washington Post op-ed in March.
Hughes also backed a national privacy bill giving control Americans over their Internet data and called for the creation of a federal agency to regulate tech companies.
“If we do not take action, Facebook’s monopoly will become even more entrenched,” Hughes warned. “With much of the world’s personal communications in hand, it can mine that data for patterns and trends, giving it an advantage over competitors for decades to come.”
[Read more: Lawmaker wants to penalize Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook privacy lapse]
