And this is my roommate, Mark.

Together, we founded Facebook in 2004.

Now, 15 years later,

I think Facebook has grown too big and too powerful.

Every week brings new headlines

about privacy violations, election interference

or mental health concerns.

I haven’t been at the company in over a decade,

but I feel a sense of responsibility

to account for the damage done.

Americans have the power to right the ship

through government action.

We need new regulations.

It’s time to break up Facebook.

The early days of Facebook

tell a classic American story of innovation

and entrepreneurship. From our college dorm room,

we started a little social network for our friends

that exploded in popularity and connected the world.

Mark’s hustle in those early years

made it possible for Facebook to dominate our rivals

like Friendster, MySpace, Tumblr and many others.

These competitors made us better.

And then we beat them out.

This is how it’s supposed to work in America. Hard work

leads to economic success.

You start a small business and compete on the merits

to provide a better product.

Today, nearly three billion people use Facebook,

Instagram, and WhatsApp, and they’re all

owned and controlled by the same company.

Of every dollar spent buying ads on social media,

$0.84 goes to Facebook.

It’s now worth over half a trillion dollars.

That’s roughly the size of the G.D.P. of the bottom 65

countries in the world -- combined.

It’s not just that Facebook is a really big social network.

It’s everything.

When a single company dominates any market,

they become susceptible to abusing their power.

Social networking is like most other American industries.

There used to be plenty of healthy competition.

But now many industries are controlled

by just one or two companies.

Companies often create an illusion of choice.

You think there are hundreds of beer brands out there,

but they’re all made by one or two companies.

Why is this a problem?

Well, when companies get too big,

they get sloppy and careless, and that

leads to things like poor privacy practices, enabling

foreign actors to meddle in elections,

the spread of violent rhetoric, fake news and the unbounded

drive to capture more of our data and attention.

I often hear people say, “I’m shutting down my

Facebook account.

Thank God for Instagram,” not realizing

that Instagram is owned by Facebook.

People are powerless in this situation

because there’s nowhere else to go.

Monopolies stifle innovation.

Facebook snatches up competitors

by buying them before they get too big.

Or, by copying their innovations.

Despite all the money and hype being

poured into new startups, there hasn’t

been a single major social media

platform launched since 2011.

The harm goes beyond he economy though,

it goes to democracy itself.

When companies become empires, people are stripped of power.

Facebook’s employees write complex rules

called algorithms that decide what you see in your News Feed.

Facebook can decide what messages get delivered

and which don’t.

And what exactly makes for

violent or inappropriate content.

Even Mark himself has said that he and the Facebook team

have too much power over speech.

Facebook does have a board of directors.

But Mark owns the majority of the shares.

Unlike the leader of a democracy

there are no checks and balances on Facebook.

Mark has no boss, and he cannot be fired.

Listen, it’d be great if Mark can fix this himself.

But this, ironically, is a problem

he cannot solve.

We need the government to intervene with two steps.

First, the Facebook empire

needs to be broken up.

America’s regulated corporate empires before,

and we can do it again.

This isn’t unprecedented and surprisingly,

it often boosts the value of these companies

in the long run.

The Federal Trade Commission can

force Facebook to unwind its acquisitions of WhatsApp

and Instagram.

Then we’ll see real competition

around social media and digital messaging. Breaking up

Facebook isn’t a punishment for its economic success.

It’s a way to guarantee that

other new companies can compete.

We also need a new government agency to protect Americans

from the overreach of Facebook and other companies like it.

Think about it.

We don’t trust airlines or pharmaceutical companies

to regulate themselves.

We shouldn't trust social media companies either.

We need basic privacy protections and the ability

for people to move their data around as they please.

Right now Facebook makes free speech decisions on its own

with little accountability.

Instead, we need government to set guidelines,

not Facebook employees in Menlo Park.

I don’t think Mark’s a bad guy and I’ve made this decision

to speak out because I feel a sense of responsibility

for what Facebook has become.

And to be honest, I’m angry that Mark’s obsession

with growth led him to sacrifice security

for clicks.

I think we all want to live in a country

where David can take on Goliath,

where a kid with a smart idea in a dorm room

can start a billion- dollar company.

We’ve strayed from that ideal, and breaking up

and regulating Facebook will help put us back on that path.