Chris Hughes, who helped co-found Facebook, said the tech giant has become too powerful and called on Congress to create a federal agency to conduct oversight of the company. Technology Facebook co-founder calls on the government to break up the company

A Facebook co-founder in a New York Times editorial today declared the social networking giant has become a monopoly with too much unchecked power and said the federal government needs to break up the company.

The lengthy and pointed criticism from Chris Hughes, who left the company in 2007 and no longer owns stock, makes him the most high-profile Facebook veteran to call attention to the shortcomings of the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.


"We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American," Hughes writes. "It is time to break up Facebook."

Hughes proposes spinning off Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp into separate companies, unwinding mergers he argues the Federal Trade Commission should never have allowed. Facebook should also be banned from making additional acquisitions for several years, he adds, writing that the company has often stifled competitors by buying them or copying their ideas.

Concerns about the deleterious effects of Facebook's market power have become a popular topic in Washington, raised by critics like Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She has called for Facebook to be broken up, part of a broader crackdown she envisions on the tech industry's biggest players. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) embraced that position as well today, saying the company's market dominance stifles competitors.

Facebook's top policy official acknowledged that there may be call for the government to take a closer look at the company. But he contended legislation is a better remedy than a breakup.

"Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company," Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice president of global affairs and communications, said in a statement.

"Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet," Clegg continued. "That is exactly what [CEO] Mark Zuckerberg has called for. Indeed, he is meeting Government leaders this week to further that work."

He did not specify which government officials, though Zuckerberg plans to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday to discuss internet regulation.

In his editorial, Hughes maintains government officials have already failed to hold Facebook accountable. "Facebook’s dominance is not an accident of history," he writes. "The company’s strategy was to beat every competitor in plain view, and regulators and the government tacitly — and at times explicitly — approved."

He also calls for Congress to establish a new federal agency charged with protecting consumers' privacy online and establishing guidelines for "acceptable speech" on social media. Zuckerberg's control over speech is "the most problematic aspect of Facebook's power," he writes.

Zuckerberg penned an editorial in late March calling on governments to enact rules for online privacy and speech rather than leaving those decisions up to corporations. That piece did not address questions about the company's market influence or his own control of the company.

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