Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing back against calls for a company breakup. During a conversation with Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Wednesday, the CEO said that dismantling the social media behemoth wouldn't solve the company’s problems — including election interference, privacy matters, or misinformation.
Zuckerberg said keeping Facebook intact would actually allow it to better deal with its many challenges. Moreover, he said, the social network has actually fostered technological innovation by scooping up companies like Instagram and WhatsApp.
"I can kind of get why politically saying that you want to break up the companies feels nice, right. It's like, 'Okay, there are issues. Let's just take a big hammer and go do it.' But I just think the reality is we want to make sure the things we do actually address the problems," he said.
Facebook's size as a benefit
Facebook has been under ever-increasing scrutiny on topics ranging from election interference, misinformation campaigns, and data privacy since it emerged that the political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica used Facebook user data to aid in the election of Donald Trump without users’ consent. The Cambridge Analytica scandal — combined with efforts by the Russian government to sow discord among American voters and several other privacy mishaps — have spurred calls for Facebook to be regulated.
With the public's trust in Big Tech shattered, politicians have swept in with calls to break up some of the largest tech companies to curb their influence.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a presidential contender, has already laid out a plan that would see tech companies dismantled, which Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has echoed in his own right. Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), meanwhile, have called for an examination of the tech industry and whether larger companies should face antitrust regulators. Former Vice President Joe Biden has also said that Big Tech needs to be looked at through the lens of potential antitrust measures.
But Zuckerberg argues that the calls to dismantle Facebook won't address the core issues of privacy, election interference, and misinformation.
"Look at Twitter, look at Reddit, all of these different services—Youtube is not much smaller than us, but you know Twitter and Reddit are. They have hundreds of millions of people instead of billions, but do they face qualitatively different issues or the same misinformation questions or election interference? Are they not suffering from that too? They absolutely are," Zuckerberg said.