Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has written an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that the social media giant needs to be broken up by regulators.
According to Hughes, the biggest problem with Facebook’s dominance is the resulting control they have over speech, which when combined with Zuckerberg’s 60% voting power, makes him too powerful.
“Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks,” said Hughes.
“There is no precedent for his ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people.”
Hughes left Facebook in 2007 to join Barack Obama’s successful election campaign, and got rid of all his Facebook shares in 2012.
However, he said he still feels responsible for what he perceives to be the damage done by Facebook to public discourse, saying that he was 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”.
Facebook VP of global affairs and communications Nick Clegg told CNBC in response: “Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company.”
