Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes believes the company is “a danger to democracy.”
In 1950, the world’s population was around 2.5 billion people. In 2019, about 2.7 billion people use Facebook.
The company has become a “danger to democracy,” according to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes.
In a piece published 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 government.”
It’s time, he writes, for regulators to break up Facebook.
“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 argues that the time has come to break Facebook appealing to economic spirit against the monopolies of America’s founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
According to Hughes’ estimates, Facebook accumulates more than 80 percent of social media revenue worldwide. This means that the company has become a monopoly and indeed a Leviathan that expels entrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice.
Hughes, who had been present on Facebook since its inception in 2002, met Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University in 2002, before leaving in 2007 to volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
He now claims that “Facebook so dominates social networks that it does not have to answer for its actions in the markets.”
Hughes also mentioned the companies expansive tentacles when complaining that “the biggest mistake of the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was to allow Facebook to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp,” a move that consolidated the company’s position in the mobile market as well.
The co-founder proposes several measures that governments, especially the US, should take to avoid the company’s monopoly. According to the first of these, “Facebook should be separated into several companies.”
Hughes believes that the US Federal Trade Commission “should enforce antitrust laws to cancel purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp and ban future purchases in the coming years.”
As an additional measure, Hughes claims that the US needs “a new agency, dependent on Congress to regulate tech companies,” aimed at protecting user privacy and that it “should create guiding principles for acceptable discourse on social networks.”
For example, he cites legislation such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (DPO), which came into force last year.
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.
Hughes also points to Zuckerberg’s leadership as one of the reasons justifying the need for Facebook’s demise. “The most problematic aspect of Facebook’s power is unilateral control over Mark’s (Zuckerberg) speech.”
“There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize, and even censor the conversations of two billion people,” according to Hughes, who values his former partner’s influence as more significant than that of anyone else in the private sector or governments.
Nor does this influence have limits within the company itself, which it claims “Facebook’s board functions more like an advisory committee than an inspector,” because Zuckerberg would control about 60 percent of the total votes.
Zuckerberg “can decide how to set up Facebook algorithms to determine what people on news feeds can see, what privacy settings they can use, and even what messages are sent,” Hughes complains.
Although he defines him as “a kind and good person,” Hughes believes that “his fixation on growth has led him to sacrifice security and civics for clicks,” and is disappointed that he did not predict the social influence Facebook’s news feed would currently gain.
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.”
Of course, a monopoly is against democracy. However, the real question here is how much of a monopoly has facebook become? It’s not a black or white question anymore, and we must use intelligence and modernity to try and answer it. Sign out? Close your account? Or is that just cutting off your nose to spite your face?