This is me back in my college days. And this is my roommate, Mark. Together, we founded Facebook in 2004. Now, 15 years later, I think Facebook has grown too big and too powerful. Every week brings new headlines about privacy violations, election interference or mental health concerns. I haven’t been at the company in over a decade, but I feel a sense of responsibility to account for the damage done. Americans have the power to right the ship through government action. We need new regulations. It’s time to break up Facebook. The early days of Facebook tell a classic American story of innovation and entrepreneurship. From our college dorm room, we started a little social network for our friends that exploded in popularity and connected the world. Mark’s hustle in those early years made it possible for Facebook to dominate our rivals like Friendster, MySpace, Tumblr and many others. These competitors made us better. And then we beat them out. This is how it’s supposed to work in America. Hard work leads to economic success. You start a small business and compete on the merits to provide a better product. Today, nearly three billion people use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and they’re all owned and controlled by the same company. Of every dollar spent buying ads on social media, $0.84 goes to Facebook. It’s now worth over half a trillion dollars. That’s roughly the size of the G.D.P. of the bottom 65 countries in the world — combined. It’s not just that Facebook is a really big social network. It’s everything. When a single company dominates any market, they become susceptible to abusing their power. Social networking is like most other American industries. There used to be plenty of healthy competition. But now many industries are controlled by just one or two companies. Companies often create an illusion of choice. You think there are hundreds of beer brands out there, but they’re all made by one or two companies. Why is this a problem? Well, when companies get too big, they get sloppy and careless, and that leads to things like poor privacy practices, enabling foreign actors to meddle in elections, the spread of violent rhetoric, fake news and the unbounded drive to capture more of our data and attention. I often hear people say, “I’m shutting down my Facebook account. Thank God for Instagram,” not realizing that Instagram is owned by Facebook. People are powerless in this situation because there’s nowhere else to go. Monopolies stifle innovation. Facebook snatches up competitors by buying them before they get too big. Or, by copying their innovations. Despite all the money and hype being poured into new startups, there hasn’t been a single major social media platform launched since 2011. The harm goes beyond he economy though, it goes to democracy itself. When companies become empires, people are stripped of power. Facebook’s employees write complex rules called algorithms that decide what you see in your News Feed. Facebook can decide what messages get delivered and which don’t. And what exactly makes for violent or inappropriate content. Even Mark himself has said that he and the Facebook team have too much power over speech. Facebook does have a board of directors. But Mark owns the majority of the shares. Unlike the leader of a democracy there are no checks and balances on Facebook. Mark has no boss, and he cannot be fired. Listen, it’d be great if Mark can fix this himself. But this, ironically, is a problem he cannot solve. We need the government to intervene with two steps. First, the Facebook empire needs to be broken up. America’s regulated corporate empires before, and we can do it again. This isn’t unprecedented and surprisingly, it often boosts the value of these companies in the long run. The Federal Trade Commission can force Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. Then we’ll see real competition around social media and digital messaging. Breaking up Facebook isn’t a punishment for its economic success. It’s a way to guarantee that other new companies can compete. We also need a new government agency to protect Americans from the overreach of Facebook and other companies like it. Think about it. We don’t trust airlines or pharmaceutical companies to regulate themselves. We shouldn’t trust social media companies either. We need basic privacy protections and the ability for people to move their data around as they please. Right now Facebook makes free speech decisions on its own with little accountability. Instead, we need government to set guidelines, not Facebook employees in Menlo Park. I don’t think Mark’s a bad guy and I’ve made this decision to speak out because I feel a sense of responsibility for what Facebook has become. And to be honest, I’m angry that Mark’s obsession with growth led him to sacrifice security for clicks. I think we all want to live in a country where David can take on Goliath, where a kid with a smart idea in a dorm room can start a billion- dollar company. We’ve strayed from that ideal, and breaking up and regulating Facebook will help put us back on that path.<doc-sep>has responded to a call by one of its co-founders for the social media giant’s break-up. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP for global affairs and communications, wrote in the New York Times that “big in itself isn’t bad” and said that such massive success “should not be penalized.” Clegg was responding to a May 9 op-ed from Chris Hughes, who co-founded the company with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2004, then left in 2007. Hughes said elected officials should do something about the growing monopoly, noting that Facebook’s influence was growing too powerful, calling it “unprecedented and un-American.” He also said that the company was not being accountable, particularly on privacy concerns and election interference. In the response, Clegg admitted that Facebook does need to be held to account, but shouldn’t be broken up by those fears. “Anyone worried about the challenges we face in an online world should look at getting the rules of the internet right, not dismantling successful American companies,” Clegg wrote. Any breakup of Facebook wouldn’t eliminate concerns about privacy or elections, Clegg contended. “Fixing these problems requires significant resources — and strong new rules.” He added that Hughes did not understand anti-trust laws, and said that calling for Facebook’s breakup had “dangerous implications” for the American technology sector. Far from being a monopoly, Facebook faces challenges from YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and TikTok, Clegg wrote. “In messaging, we’re not even the leader in the top three markets — China, Japan and, by our estimate, the United States — where we compete with Apple’s iMessage, WeChat, Line and Microsoft’s Skype,” he continued.<doc-sep>This is how Facebook kills its competition Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers his speech during the VivaTech (Viva Technology) trade fair in Paris, on May 24, 2018. (Photo by GERARD JULIEN / AFP) (Photo credit should read GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images) What Trump supporters see on their Facebook feeds Chris, a Trump supporter, reacts to a fact check of a manipulated video shared by the Trump campaign. A Facebook employee walks by a sign displaying the "like" sign at Facebook's corporate headquarters campus in Menlo Park, California, on October 23, 2019. (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images) TOPSHOT - A demonstrator wearing a mask painted with the colours of the flag of East Turkestan and a hand bearing the colours of the Chinese flag attends a protest of supporters of the mostly Muslim Uighur minority and Turkish nationalists to denounce China's treatment of ethnic Uighur Muslims during a deadly riot in July 2009 in Urumqi, in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, on July 5, 2018. - Nearly 200 people died during a series of violent riots that broke out on July 5, 2009 over several days in Urumqi, the capital city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in northwestern China, between Uyghurs and Han people. (Photo by OZAN KOSE / AFP) (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) U.S. President Donald Trump works on his phone during a roundtable at the State Dining Room of the White House June 18, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump held a roundtable discussion with Governors and small business owners on the reopening of American's small business. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 28: Former President Donald Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 28, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Facebook decision 'is wait and see,' says former public policy director Facebook Oversight Board: Indefinite suspension of Trump's account is 'not appropriate' Facebook co-founder: 'It's not a personal beef, but it is personal' (CNN Business) — Chris Hughes helped Mark Zuckerberg transform Facebook from a dorm-room project into a real business. Now, he’s calling for the company to be broken up. In a lengthy opinion piece published Thursday by the New York Times, Hughes says that Zuckerberg has “unchecked power” and influence “far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.” It’s time, he writes, for regulators to break up Facebook (FB). “Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks,” writes Hughes. “I’m disappointed in myself and the early Facebook team for not thinking more about how the News Feed algorithm could change our culture, influence elections and empower nationalist leaders,” he continues. “And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them.” Hughes is the latest in a series of prominent entrepreneurs and tech executives to call for stricter regulation of Facebook and other online platforms. They are speaking out as countries around the world rush to put better controls in place following a wave of scandals related to data privacy, election meddling and the spread of misinformation. Zuckerberg has signaled that he’s open to some regulation. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post in March, the CEO tried to sketch out areas where he thought regulation should start. In Hughes view, Facebook’s calls for regulation are a way to head off a potential antitrust case. Hughes, who has not worked at Facebook in over a decade, argues that Zuckerberg’s competitive drive and quest for domination has led the company to control an estimated 80% of the world’s social network revenue. The entrepreneur says that Facebook is now a “powerful monopoly” that should be forced to reverse its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp. Hughes also says the US government should create a new agency to regulate tech companies. “[Zuckerberg] has created a leviathan that crowds out entrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice. It’s on our government to ensure that we never lose the magic of the invisible hand,” Hughes writes. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communications, said in a statement that accountability “can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet.” “Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability,” he said. “But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company.”<doc-sep>
Facebook’s vice president for global affairs and communications on Saturday penned a rebuttal op-ed after the social media platform’s co-founder called for the company to be dismantled. Nick Clegg wrote in The New York Times that "big in itself isn’t bad" and said that "success should not be penalized." "Facebook shouldn’t be broken up — but it does need to be held to account. Anyone worried about the challenges we face in an online world should look at getting the rules of the internet right, not dismantling successful American companies," Clegg wrote. ADVERTISEMENT The company’s response comes days after a scathing op-ed from Chris Hughes, a former Harvard student who co-founded Facebook with CEO Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot ZuckerbergTech giants face rising pressure from shareholder activists Democrats ask Facebook to abandon 'Instagram for kids' plans US billionaire wealth skyrocketed 55 percent during pandemic, accelerating inequality MORE in 2004. Hughes wrote that Facebook was not being held accountable for privacy concerns and election interference on the platform. He also called Zuckerberg’s influence "unprecedented and un-American" and called on lawmakers to protect citizens from monopolies. Clegg wrote that Hughes was right that companies should be held accountable for their actions. "But the challenges he alludes to, including election interference and privacy safeguards, won’t evaporate by breaking up Facebook or any other big tech company," Clegg wrote. "Fixing these problems requires significant resources — and strong new rules." Clegg wrote that Hughes misunderstood antitrust laws, claiming that his arguments about Facebook being a monopoly hold "dangerous implications for the American technology sector, the strongest pillar of the economy." The platform faces competition for photo and video sharing from YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and TikTok, Clegg wrote. "In messaging, we’re not even the leader in the top three markets — China, Japan and, by our estimate, the United States — where we compete with Apple’s iMessage, WeChat, Line and Microsoft’s Skype," he continued. Hughes, who left the company in 2007, said his friendship with Zuckerberg is "probably" over after his fierce rebuke. "I really don't know if we're gonna be friends," Hughes told CBS. "Probably not, but there are some friendships where you have disagreements, and big ones, and you still stay friends."