Politicians mobilize behind the call of Chris Hughes at the dissolution of Facebook

Politicians respond to Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes' Thursday editorial that the social media giant should be dismantled.

"FB has become too big and too powerful, and this is part of the trend of our economy to a growing concentration of corporate power," Hughes said in a statement. tweet promoting his editorial at The New York Times. "We can solve this problem: dismantle society and regulate it." Hughes left Facebook in 2007.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, presidential candidate 2020, expressed his support for Hughes on Twitter. Warren talked about blowing up high-tech companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook for small businesses.

Chris Hughes is right: today's big tech companies have too much power – over our economy, our society, and our democracy – they have destroyed competition, used our private information for profit, damaged to small businesses and stifled innovation. #BreakUpBigTechWarren tweeted.

Representative Ro Khanna congratulated Hughes' essay in a tweet and agreed that Facebook should not have acquired WhatsApp and Instagram in 2012.

"I think the way forward is to look closely at future mergers and to ensure that no company has anti-competitive platform privileges," Khanna tweeted. "The history of the valley is that of the giants of the past – AOL, Yahoo, Cisco and even Microsoft – are paving the way for the giants of the future.We need a well-designed regulation to keep this going."

In his essay, Hughes said that the Federal Trade Commission had made a mistake by allowing Facebook to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal echoed Hughes' statement in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. Blumenthal said that the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions should be "settled" and that the Department of Justice should look into appropriate antitrust remedies.

"And let's remember that being big is not illegal.It is misusing this dominant position in the market, as Facebook has done by acquiring innovative businesses before && ™; They can not really reach maturity and by copying new technologies so as to stifle competition and innovation, "Blumenthal said in the interview.

Hughes stated that at the time of their acquisition, neither Instagram nor WhatsApp generated significant revenues, but they were popular.

But Adam Mosseri, Facebook's Instagram manager, tweeted to Hughes"Regulation is important and necessary, but I am not convinced that separating is the right path."

Former Wall Street Journal editorialist Walt Mossberg also tweeted his support.

"I totally agree with this blunt, clever [New York Times] editorial by [Facebook] The co-founder, Chris Hughes, has called for the dissolution of this huge cancerous business AND the regulation of the remaining entities under a tough new federal privacy law, "said Mossberg.

I totally agree with this blunt, clever @NY Times editorial by @Facebook The co-founder, Chris Hughes, has called for the dissolution of this huge cancerous business AND the regulation of the remaining entities under a tough new federal privacy law.https: //t.co/ 3NqFiT4mZf?

– Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) May 9, 2019

In response to Hughes' essay, Facebook said it accepted the fact that success comes with accountability.

"You do not impose accountability by calling for the dissolution of a successful American company," said Nick Clegg, vice president of Global Affairs and Communications of Facebook, in a statement. "The responsibility of technology companies can only be obtained by the laborious introduction of new rules for the Internet, which is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg asked."

Ayman Hariri, CEO and founder of Vero, explains that his social media site offers an alternative to Facebook. Vero describes itself as an algorithm-free social media platform, without advertisements or algorithms, that does not exploit (and never will) user data.

"It's incredibly difficult to break out of the status quo for so long, but there are some valid alternatives, and individuals have to choose themselves to join an honest platform that puts power in the hands of users," he said. Hariri told a statement sent by email.