Time to Break Up Facebook?

[rlvaughn]

It’s Time to Break Up Facebook, by Chris Hughes, co-founder

The company’s mistakes — the sloppy privacy practices that dropped tens of millions of users’ data into a political consulting firm’s lap; the slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news; and the unbounded drive to capture ever more of our time and attention — dominate the headlines. It’s been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven’t worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility.

Mark’s influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day. Facebook’s board works more like an advisory committee than an overseer, because Mark controls around 60 percent of voting shares. Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered.

Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks. I’m 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. And I’m worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them.

We already have the tools we need to check the domination of Facebook. We just seem to have forgotten about them.

America was built on the idea that power should not be concentrated in any one person, because we are all fallible. That’s why the founders created a system of checks and balances. They didn’t need to foresee the rise of Facebook to understand the threat that gargantuan companies would pose to democracy.

 

[Reynolds]

It’s Time to Break Up Facebook, by Chris Hughes, co-founder

I don't have a Facebook account. I consider it a boil on the backside of humanity.

 

[church mouse guy]

I have read that young people do not use Facebook but like more active platforms such as TikTok . Facebook does seem to have a social agenda. Here is a short video posted today by South African Willem Petzer about a casual post on Facebook that caused him to get a thirty day suspension from Facebook:

 

[church mouse guy]

Zuckerberg is just banning anyone and anything that he does not like or does not understand. I think that it is time to start a new Free Speech Home where all things are considered that do not call for violence or veer into obscenity and pornography. If Trump would leave Twitter, it would go out of business. What do you think?

 

[InTheLight]

Josh Hawley-R, the freshman senator from Missouri that defeated Claire McCaskill, is a proponent of breaking up Facebook. He's a youngster at 39 years old and has a lot of fresh ideas. I don't know his positions on a lot of issues. Might be someone to keep an eye on.

 

[rlvaughn]

Facebook does seem to have some of the earmarks of a monopoly. It will be interesting to watch.

 

[RighteousnessTemperance&]

Facebook does seem to have some of the earmarks of a monopoly. It will be interesting to watch.

I’m not sure how best to address the problem, but they (he?) undoubtedly have far too much biased control over a huge swath of information exchange that dominates social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. Google, YouTube, and Twitter are also part of this issue, though not owned by Facebook.