‘Zuckerberg’s power is unprecedented and un-American’: Facebook CO-FOUNDER says the social network’s boss is too powerful and the government should break up ‘dangerous’ tech giant
Chris Hughes spoke out in a searing New York Times op-ed on Thursday
Co-founder of Facebook blasted the company and called for antitrust action
Said CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s power is ‘unprecedented and un-American’
Lamented Zuckerberg’s ‘unilateral control over speech’ and threat of censorship
Demanded federal regulators break up Facebook into smaller companies
Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp which Hughes says should be sold
By KEITH GRIFFITH
DAILYMAIL.COM
9 May 2019
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has called for federal regulators to break up the company, saying that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is too powerful and that the company is an effective monopoly.
‘It is time to break up Facebook,’ Hughes, who was Zuckerberg’s Harvard roommate, wrote in a searing op-ed for the New York Times on Thursday. ‘Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American.’
Hughes, 35, helped build Facebook from the beginning, and was a key creator in products like the social network’s New Feed. He left the company in 2007 to join Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, and says he liquidated his Facebook stock in 2012.
Now, Hughes says he has watched with horror as the company he helped create has grown into a behemoth through the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, threatening to crush free speech and stifle competitive innovation.
According to Hughes, the most dire threat at Facebook is Zuckerberg’s ‘unilateral control over speech.’
‘There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people,’ he continued.
‘Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government,’ Hughes wrote.
Hughes said that Zuckerberg has virtually unlimited control over algorithms that determine what each of billions of Facebook users sees in their News Feed, what privacy settings they can use, and even which messages they receive on the platform.
‘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,’ Hughes wrote.
Facebook did not immediately reply to a message from DailyMail.com seeking a response to Hughes’ op-ed.
The Rest…HERE
