One of the co-founders of Facebook has called on for the social media behemoth to be broken up, warning that the company’s head, Mark Zuckerberg, had become far too powerful.
“It’s time to break up Facebook,” said ChrisHughes, who along with Zuckerberg founded the online network in their dorm roomwhile both were students at Harvard University in 2004.
In an editorial published in The New York Times, Hughes saidZuckerberg’s “focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civilityfor clicks,” and warned that his global influence had become”staggering.”
Zuckerberg not only controls Facebook but also the widely usedInstagram and WhatsApp platforms, and Hughes said that Facebook’s board worksmore like an advisory committee than a check on the chief executive’s power.
“Facebook accepts that with success comesaccountability,” said vice president of global affairs and communicationsNick Clegg.
“But you don’t enforce accountability by calling forthe breakup of a successful American company.” Clegg, a British formerdeputy prime minister, reasoned that carefully crafted regulation of theinternet is the way to hold technology companies accountable, and noted thatZuckerberg has been advocating for just that.
Facebook and its family of services have many competitors,and can find corporate efficiencies when it comes to data centres, talent andother resources that can work on its various offerings, Clegg said.
Hughes, who quit Facebook more than a decade ago, waspictured in the newspaper together with Zuckerberg when both were fresh-facedstudents launching Facebook as a campus networking tool.
He accused Facebook of acquiring or copying all of itscompetitors to achieve dominance in the social media field, meaning thatinvestors were reluctant to back any rivals because they know they cannotcompete for long.
Zuckerberg “has created a leviathan that crowds outentrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice,” wrote Hughes, who is nowa member of the Economic Security Project, which is pushing for a universalbasic income in the United States.
After buying up its main competitors Instagram, where peoplecan publish photos, and WhatsApp, a secure messaging service, Facebook now has2.7 billion monthly users across its platforms and made a first quarter profitof USD 2.43 billion this year.
“The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power isMark’s unilateral control over speech. There is no precedent for his ability tomonitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billionpeople,” said Hughes.
The company has been rocked by a series of scandalsrecently, including allowing its users’ data to be harvested by researchcompanies and its slow response to Russia using Facebook as a means to spreaddisinformation during the 2016 US election campaign.
Facebook is reportedly expecting to face a fine of $5billion. It has also been investing heavily in staff and artificialintelligence to fight misinformation and other abuses at its platform.
A whistleblower group in Washington filed an officialcomplaint that Facebook was unwittingly auto-generating content forterror-linked groups using its platform that its artificial intelligencesystems do not recognize as extremist.
Facebook’s software was automatically “creating andpromoting terror content,” the National Whistleblowers Center added in thecomplaint, by creating “celebration” and “memories” videosfor extremist pages that had amassed sufficient views or “likes.”
The group said Thursday it filed a complaint with the USSecurities and Exchange Commission on behalf of a source that preferred toremain anonymous.
In his editorial, Hughes urged the government to breakInstagram and WhatsApp away from Facebook and prevent new acquisitions forseveral years.
“The American government needs to do two things: breakup Facebook’s monopoly and regulate the company to make it more accountable tothe American people,” Hughes said.
“Even after a breakup, Facebook would be a hugelyprofitable business with billions to invest in new technologies — and a morecompetitive market would only encourage those investments,” he said.
Hughes said the break-up, under existing anti-trust laws,would allow better privacy protections for social media users and would cost USauthorities almost nothing.Hughes said that he remained friends withZuckerberg, noting that “he’s human. But it’s his very humanity that makeshis unchecked power so problematic.”