
Chris Hughes, a Facebook Founder, Is Working With the Government to Break It Up - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/technology/chris-hughes-facebook-breakup.html
======
mastazi
The double standard that most of the press shows with regards to Facebook and
Google is inexplicable to me. My personal (probably biased) perception is that
Google is far more of a monopoly, yet the press seems to be mostly OK with it
(I mostly tend to read US-based news sites when it comes to this topic). I am
not based in the USA so maybe there is something that I'm missing, could
anyone explain? Is it because of the Cambridge Analytica scandal? Or is it
because Facebook and Google are perceived as having different political
affiliations?

Edit: not only the press, but also organisations like e.g. the Mozilla
Foundation (where is the official Google Container that people have been
asking for)?

~~~
dinofacedude
Its mostly the sheer influence that FB has. Google has a ton of sway itself,
but outside of Youtube, most people mostly spend their time on the internet
with Facebook. As seen with Cambridge Analytica, a lot of info on people's
beliefs and party affiliations is known by facebook, so FB can actually
influence a persons votes. Google has that power as well, but to a much lesser
extent.

~~~
cm2187
You are ignoring google news, where they effectively run their own editing by
selecting the articles at the top, and also what comes back as the first page
of result when you type “joe biden thinks” for instance. I’d say they have at
least the same political influence.

Particularly given that never mind what their reported engagement numbers say,
I only know people who stopped using facebook around me. I just don’t believe
their numbers.

~~~
dinofacedude
Google News is not a proper competitor to FB though. No one I know uses it at
all

~~~
cm2187
Doesn't seem to be the opinion of news websites when they were cut out by
google

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mholt
Huh. Wow. I remember being at a presentation Chris gave in Dubuque Iowa of all
places back in 2007 or 2008 as he explained how the Obama campaign was using
Facebook. It was one of the first high profile campaigns to do so. I thought
it was brilliant back then for a presidential candidate to utilize social
media... What an amazing idea! But now I hate everything. (Was it always this
bad and we just didn't see it before?)

~~~
organsnyder
Back in 2008, Facebook didn't have nearly the algorithmic curation it has now.
For instance, you were much more likely to see posts from friends sharing
content you disagreed with. Now, Facebook's algorithms have gotten so good at
their primary business objective (increasing engagement with the platform)
that you're guaranteed to see almost entirely content that you agree with.

If I share a picture of my kids, Facebook makes sure all of my relatives will
see it. If I share a political post, it will only be seen by my friends that
agree with me.

Ad targeting was also much less sophisticated back then (did Facebook even
have ads yet at that point?).

~~~
spunker540
Really? The only time I see differing political opinions from people I know is
on Facebook, because it’s typically weak ties rather than close ties who sit
on the other side of the aisle, and Facebook is the main way I keep up with
weak ties.

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thwythwy
The notion that a cofounder has some secret sauce that gives the government
the authority and power to do something like this is a great way to drive
clicks. But it ain't gonna break up facebook.

~~~
slang800
> gives the government the authority

Not authority, the article just claims that Hughes is giving them information
to use when building their case.

~~~
joe_the_user
Wikipedia tells me Hughes hasn't been involved with Facebook for 12 years,
since he left in 2007. A lot can change in that period. It's hard to imagine
Hughes providing a "smoking gun".

Note: As I understand it, anti-trust litigation isn't based on stuff a company
did long ago to get into a commanding position, it is based a company having
and abusing a commanding position. What does someone who left long ago know
about this?

~~~
harrumph
>A lot can change in that period. It's hard to imagine Hughes providing a
"smoking gun".

I see it the opposite way: any forensic examination of the business lines in
an IT-only operation can benefit greatly from institutional memory such as
Hughes can provide and few if any other cooperators could. The "why" of
business processes are often quickly obscured/lost by successive operations
and if the company is a candidate for breakup, old decisions often speak to
demarcations where business lines can be reasonably separated. Of course, the
company's counsel would never admit to any reasonable theory of separation, so
old execs are kind of essential to the examination.

>Note: As I understand it, anti-trust litigation isn't based on stuff a
company did long ago, it is based a company having and abusing a commanding
position. What does someone who left long ago know about this?

They know the why and all of the how and the when, which allows anyone
interested in breaking up the company to put their fingers on the hidden fault
lines buried by successive layers of years of "new normal" at the company.

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choppaface
After Chris Hughes destroyed The New Republic [1][2], it would be hard to
believe he has no strong financial interest in taking apart Facebook.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8705410)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8743425)

~~~
opsiprogram
What is the financial interest he has in breaking facebook? How's it related
to his failure at The New Republic?

~~~
lwb
Some of Facebook's primary competitors are traditional news media outlets.
Chris Hughes still owns Facebook stock (I think). If Hughes can take down a
newspaper, that's one less competitor for Facebook, and his stock goes up.

[http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Hughes](http://whoownsfacebook.com/#Hughes)

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Pfhreak
I honestly initially read the "it" in this headline to imply "the Government",
figuring Facebook finally had enough and was going to try and break down its
regulators.

~~~
SolaceQuantum
This is a valid way to read 'it'. The title is written poorly; I've found
that, in order to reduce ambiguity in referential language, 'it' should
generally refer to the most recent noun(or a most recent noun with 'the' in
front). Otherwise the legibility of the writing is lost, such as this title.
Admittedly, there's not much way to keep this from reading awkwardly.

~~~
user234683
I've never heard of that rule. Ambiguous pronouns like this are pretty common
in English. In fact, figuring out what the ambiguous pronoun refers to is the
basis for the Winograd Schema, a challenge for AI especially relevant to
translation tasks [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winograd_schema](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winograd_schema)

~~~
SolaceQuantum
It's not a rule, sorry. Let me change my language to be less authoritative.

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opportune
When I read about these things I always suspect there are some hidden personal
motivations behind the scenes that go beyond an altruistic duty to society.
Probably some personal vendetta against Zuck or desire to have your legacy
disassociated from helping create Facebook.

Not that it makes the publicly stated motivatins or arguments invalid

~~~
ben7799
What's interesting here I think is how often these other founders of FB or
companies FB gobbled up react when they get in contact with Mark Zuckerberg..

It seems like an awful lot of people he was deeply involved with have turned
against him and FB.

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leroy_masochist
This all seems like an elaborate effort by Hughes to get back into the good
graces of the blue-check-mark crowd after they soured on him for what he did
to The New Republic.

~~~
thundergolfer
Who are the “blue-check-mark crowd”?

~~~
civilian
Twitter users with blue check marks. The way the commenter used it probably is
meant to imply "the corporate media journalists"

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3xblah
Perhaps the big difference between building these DOJ antitrust cases and the
ones against IBM and later Microsoft is that today more members of the public
can see how a company like Facebook can be harmful in conducting its
"business".

There are many more people using computers and computer networks today and
these companies play a more visible and arguably more significant role in more
people's lives. It is plausible that more people are likely to care, even
those with no stake in the industry or the litigation.

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newscracker
Chris Hughes left Facebook in 2007, but I think his inputs could _possibly_ be
valuable. While a lot has changed on the product front in 12 years, the most
important question is whether the thinking at the top has changed much in this
period. Have Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg demonstrated that their
thinking on many matters, including privacy, has changed drastically? I would
argue that it hasn't changed much.

It's in the thinking patterns, the decision making patterns (what they would
trade off for what) and general strategies where Chris Hughes could _possibly_
provide deeper insight. That in turn would help connect some dots (or where to
look for dots) and also find patterns where none seem to exist with raw data
available right now. Such repeated patterns would be quite useful and forceful
in building a case that these people and the company cannot be trusted to be a
good steward by themselves and that external actions are required.

It would be great if they could somehow get the WhatsApp and Instagram
founders to provide more information, though I'd presume that these would be
prohibited, to some extent, by their contracts and exit agreements.

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anticensor
Facebook cannot be broken up. It needs to be torn down (with a few weeks of
notice so users can download their own data).

~~~
dredmorbius
At this point, arrangements for them to retrieve content from the myriad
parties it's already been "shared" with should suffice.

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tedmcdo
If I remember correctly, this is the same guy that wanted to get involved in
politics. Great way to get some recognition, while accomplishing very little.

I'm sure he also diversified his stock before his campaign.

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WC3w6pXxgGd
Since when is government good at anything?

It's simple: if you don't like Facebook, don't use it's products. It's not the
proper role of government to interfere in private business.

~~~
organsnyder
Government breaking up AT&T had pretty good outcomes, IMHO.

~~~
bryan_w
Really? You think AT&T and Verizon are the pinnacle of good corporate
behavior?

~~~
firethief
In the ensuing 35+ years, a new anticompetitive situation has developed around
different technology and different shared resources. Should we judge the
solution to a problem by whether more problems of the same class arise
independently for future generations?

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bpchaps
Mods: it's "Hughes", not "Hughers".

~~~
dang
Fixed now. Thanks!

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redthrowaway
Chris Hughes sure has turned being randomly assigned as Zuck's room mate into
a lucrative career.

~~~
__jal
As if Zuck wasn't a right-place-right-time lottery winner.

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mactyler
Using hot button social issues for personal gain, what a guy!

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civilian
> Chris Hughes, a Facebook Founder, Is Working With the Government to Break It
> Up

I was really hoping "it" meant "the government".

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thinkcomp
My thoughts on Chris and his big idea, below. At least he's giving them names.
But how many lies and utopian promises did he spin to the press during his
time there?

[http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20190509/my-
response-t...](http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/20190509/my-response-to-
chris-hughes/)

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
I agree, more or less, with your outlook on Facebook. My only complaint is
that I really wish that we could manage to mention "fraud" without going for
the easy political jab at whoever happens to be President.

It feels like a cheap way to gain _pathos_ / pseudo- _pathos_ appeal, and I
don't like it.

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facethrowaway
Bravo to Chris. We need to see more of this.

Of all the FB lottery winners, the one who should be doing the most and avoids
all negative press is Dustin Moskovitz. He votes his super voting shares
whatever way Mark Zuckberberg wants, keeping Zuck’s power unchecked. The world
needs to stop allowing him to pretend to be an accidentally successful founder
of Asana and force him to own up to his responsibilities.

