In a New York Times op-ed, Facebook’s co-founder Chris Hughes, expressed concern over the growing power of Facebook and urges the government to take actions that would stop the social networking platform from becoming even more powerful than it is today.
Joining the long list of advocates that includes politicians who want to slap Facebook with an anti-trust lawsuit is none other than its co-founder, Chris Hughes who founded Facebook together with CEO Mark Zuckerberg. According to Mr. Hughes, Facebook today is not the same Facebook that he co-founded. It has grown too big and too powerful. Even worse is the fact that its CEO who, according to Hughes is still his friend, is not accountable for the violation of privacy that may happen in the social networking platform.
This is not the first time that Facebook has been the subject of government scrutiny and Zuckerberg is not new to facing charges against his company. But through it all, the CEO managed to come out relatively unscathed. And just when most thought that Facebook has finally been freed of scrutiny, it has recently been battered by new issues such as the leak of personal information of Facebook users, as well as the controversy about “election meddling”, and draconian style political censorship.
Mr. Hughes also said that Mr. Zuckerberg cannot fix Facebook no matter how much power he has over the company. Only the government can fix the company which according to can be done by making the market competitive, breaking up Facebook, and creating restrictions that support privacy.
Additionally, Hughes suggested that the government reverse the ruling that approved the merger of Facebook with Instagram and WhatsApp and that both Instagram and WhatsApp should be treated as separate companies that will compete with Facebook. He also recommended the creation of another agency that would regulate and manage technology. This agency would be in addition to the existing FTC.
Finally, Hughes thinks that although Zuckerberg is amenable to the regulation of Facebook, he doesn’t want the regulation process to be too drastic but a more friendly one that will not affect the company’s interests and objectives. He also believes that the Facebook CEO will stop at nothing to make sure that the process will not breakup Facebook.
