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May 10, 2019 03:09 am PDT

Co-founder of Facebook calls for breakup of Facebook

Chris Hughes co-founded Facebook with Mark Zukerberg, and describes Zuckerberg in warm terms as a friend, but in a long op-ed for the New York Times, Hughes calls for the breakup of Facebook and identifies Zuckerberg's shortsighted prioritization of "clicks" instead of "security and civility" for the platform's toxicity, blaming the company's unusual share structure (which gives Zuckerberg an absolute veto over all matters of company policy despite holding a minority of its shares) for a situation in which Zuckerberg is surrounded by yes-men who never check his worst impulses.

Hughes argues that Facebook should never have been allowed to acquire Instagram or Whatsapp, and calls for a return to traditional, pre-Reagan antitrust laws, fueled by the American Founding Fathers' commitment to pluralism and their skepticism of concentrated power.

Hughes calls Facebook a monopoly and enumerates many ways in which Facebook monopolizes key sectors of the digital economy. He implies that Facebook's dominance is not a reflection of its quality, but rather the FTC's antitrust malpractice, which allowed Facebook to get away with illegal tactics to gain and expand its dominant position.

In Hughes's view, Facebook is "the perfect case" for a return to traditional antitrust, with its ban on vertical integration, mergers-to-monopoly and acquisition of nascent competitors. He pooh-poohs the possibility that Facebook could staff up a privacy team to remake its own culture, and instead lays out an ambitious slate of Facebook reforms: breaking up the company and forcing it to sell off major units it acquired like Whatsapp and Instagram; banning new acquisitions, and creating a new federal agency to oversee Facebook and its competitors. Read the rest


Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/DYepn1H2gr4/bork-zuck.html

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