The Hill: Co-founder's call to break up Facebook energizes its critics
A call to break up Facebook from one of the company's co-founders is bringing new momentum to the movement targeting Silicon Valley's giants.
Chris Hughes published an op-ed in The New York Times on Thursday arguing that the company that he helped build as a college student at Harvard had grown too large and unaccountable.
The article was a stunning rebuke from a former insider and made waves in the political world and across social media.
“I think that blew open the conversation in an incredibly meaningful way,” said Sarah Miller, the deputy director of the Open Markets Institute, which has helped push antitrust questions about tech companies to the forefront over the past year and a half.
“It's getting harder and harder to defend Facebook maintaining its monopoly power,” she added.
In the op-ed, Hughes said that he was worried about the amount of power Facebook had amassed over the world’s communications and how Mark Zuckerberg, his former roommate and co-founder, had complete control over the company.