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Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes said it was time to break the social media giant.
In an article published Thursday in the New York Times, Hughes said CEO Mark Zuckerberg had turned Facebook into a stifling monopoly of innovation.
Hughes described Zuckerberg's "unprecedented and anti-American" power and said that his co-founder's emphasis on growth "has led to sacrificing security and civility for clicks".
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Hughes shared a room with Zuckerberg at Harvard and left Facebook in 2007 to campaign for Barack Obama. Hughes said he was no longer the owner of Facebook or any other social media company.
"I feel a sense of anger and responsibility," he wrote, deploring the "slow reaction of society to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and false news".
Facebook has been criticized for its growing list of breaches of privacy and security, as well as for endangering democracy by failing to effectively combat the proliferation of misinformation and hate speech. by extremist groups.
Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg responded to Hughes' criticism by stating, "You are not enforcing accountability by calling for the dissolution of a successful American business. Technology companies can only be achieved by the laborious introduction of new rules for the Internet, which is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has asked for. "
Zuckerberg however is shown vague about the type of regulation that he advocates.
Critics, including Hughes, believe that Facebook has gained too much power to stay intact. Hughes' call echoes a proposal by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who also wants to split Amazon and Google into separate companies.
In this opinion piece, Hughes called Facebook a "monopoly", which should be forced to part with WhatsApp and Instagram, with future acquisitions being banned for several years.
Hughes also called for the creation of a new federal agency to regulate technology companies whose "first mandate is to protect privacy."
The debate started on a federal bill on the protection of privacy. California law comes into force in January and the EU's privacy rules are now one year old.
Meanwhile, Facebook faces a fine of up to $ 5 billion from the Federal Trade Commission for violation of privacy. Critics say the amount is just a slap on the finger for a company that had $ 55.8 billion in sales last year.
Hughes says that he sold off his Facebook shares in 2012, the year he became editor of The New Republic. He said that he was not investing in any social media business.
Last year, Hughes published a book advocating a universal basic income. In 2017, Forbes put its net worth at more than $ 400 million.
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