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It’s Time to Break Up Facebook
Article

It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

Chris Hughes
The New York Times, 2019
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Engaging

Recommendation

What with data privacy scandals, fake news and Russian interference, Facebook finds itself in the middle of a growing storm. An increasing number of voices in US politics – as well as in economic and legal circles – have started to call for the breakup of the internet giant. Now Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has joined the chorus. He makes his case in a New York Times op-ed, which has become an instant must-read for anybody interested in the debate about the role of government in the social media space.

Summary

Since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg purchased Instagram and WhatsApp, he wields unprecedented dominance in the social networking space. Billions of people around the world use the platforms regularly, and Facebook now pockets over 80% of the world’s social networking revenue. As Zuckerberg holds the majority vote on the Facebook board, he alone can determine the configuration of news feeds and privacy settings. He also has the final say over what content to remove from the sites, giving him de facto censorship authority over two billion users.

Since the 1990s, US courts have become reluctant...

About the Author

Chris Hughes is a former roommate of Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and a co-founder of Facebook. 

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