Facebook’s co-founder: ‘It’s time to break up Facebook’ - The Washington Post

May 9 at 10:06 AM

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, is calling for the breakup of the social media juggernaut, citing the threat of the platform’s unchecked power and that of founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In an op-ed published Thursday in the New York Times, Chris Hughes, who helped form Facebook in a Harvard dorm, joined the growing chorus of lawmakers and advocates demanding the U.S. government rein in Facebook. Despite its myriad scandals — Russian propagandists exploiting the platform to spread misinformation and sway U.S. elections, the sharing of millions of users’ personal data with the political data firm Cambridge Analytica and companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Netflix — Facebook’s reach continues to grow.

“For too long, lawmakers have marveled at Facebook’s explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure Americans are protected and markets are competitive,” Hughes wrote. “It is time to break up Facebook.”

Hughes’s calls come as Facebook faces yet another controversy after an AP investigation revealed that the platform automatically generates videos and pages that elevate extremist groups.

[A content moderator says she got PTSD while reviewing images posted on Facebook]

The op-ed painted a stark portrait of Facebook’s dominance: The company is worth half a trillion dollars and its products are regularly used by billions of people. By Hughes’s estimates, Facebook commands “more than 80 percent of the world’s social networking revenue.”

Another major social networking platform hasn’t been founded since 2011, and despite the movements like #deleteFacebook, it’s almost impossible to avoid, with many people eschewing the core platform in favor of Instagram or WhatsApp, not realizing they are Facebook subsidiaries. The apparent avalanche of disasters hasn’t dented Facebook’s finances; its earnings per share increased 40 percent last year, despite a torrent of public failures.

[Inside Facebook, the second-class workers who do the hardest job are waging a quiet battle]

“Because Facebook so dominates social networking, it faces no market-based accountability,” Hughes wrote. “This means that every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment, and finally, resignation.”

No aspect of Facebook is more troubling than Zuckerberg’s total authority, Hughes wrote, calling it “unprecedented and un-American.” Zuckerberg controls 60 percent of the company’s voting shares and has ultimate oversight over Facebook’s algorithms, its privacy settings and community guidelines. He has the money and power to copy, buy, or squash his competitors. While Hughes defended Zuckerberg as a “good, kind person,” he cast him as a man hellbent on domination, even when it imperils the American public and democracy.

"I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks,” Hughes wrote.

[Mark Zuckerberg: The Internet needs new rules. Let's start in these four areas.]

Hughes wants the government to correct the FTC’s “biggest mistake” by forcing Instagram and WhatsApp to split from Facebook and become competitors once again. Hughes also wants the government to create an agency to monitor tech companies to ensure healthy regulation. Zuckerberg himself has called for regulation in a March op-ed published in The Post.

“Lawmakers often tell me we have too much power over speech, and frankly I agree,” Zuckerberg wrote, also citing privacy, data protection and election integrity as other areas in need of government oversight. Hughes argues Zuckerberg is only interested in regulation that is “friendly” to Facebook’s interests.

Legislators on both sides of the aisle have made a case for federal intervention with Facebook. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has made the breakup of American tech giants a pillar of her presidential campaign.

“Today’s big tech companies have too much power — over our economy, our society & our democracy,” Warren said in a tweet Thursday. “They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses & stifled innovation.”

Chris Hughes is right. Today’s big tech companies have too much power—over our economy, our society, & our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses & stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech. https://t.co/rZMftEwlkN

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 9, 2019

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said he’d hit tech companies with antitrust violations or fraud charges, arguing they unfairly censor right-leaning speech. This week, two top senators urged the FTC to go beyond its expected $5 billion fine against Facebook for its privacy practices, calling for tough punishments and accountability measures.

“The public is rightly asking whether Facebook is too big to be held accountable,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph Simons. “The FTC must set a resounding precedent that is heard by Facebook and any other tech company that disregards the law in a rapacious quest for growth.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/09/facebooks-co-founder-its-time-break-up-facebook/

2019-05-09 14:33:57Z
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Chevron Bows Out Of Anadarko Fight, Oxy Jet Trip Suggests Shell Might Step Up - OilPrice.com

A report that Occidental Petroleum’s corporate jet traveled to the Hague, one of Shell’s two home towns, has sparked a fresh flare-up of speculation regarding its proposed acquisition of Anadarko, CNBC reports, citing an unnamed source.

The news comes after reports on Thursday suggest that Chevron is bowing out of the fight to acquire Anadarko, despite some analysts thinking that it would up its offer to compete with Occidental’s. Chevron will be entitled to a $1 billion breakup fee per the terms of the original agreement.

Bloomberg sources had originally reported today that Anadarko was looking for Chevron to increase its bid so that it was competitive with Occidental’s bid.

Occidental has been under the watchful eye of the media since its bid for Anadarko. Earlier this week, an earlier trip by Oxy’s corporate jet was reported by Bloomberg after sightings of Oxy’s Gulfstream V in Omaha, giving rise to rumors about a possible involvement of Warren Buffett in the deal, which later got their confirmation when Buffett said he was willing to bankroll the Anadarko acquisition if Occidental managed to get a final yes from the target company.

The Sage from Omaha has committed US$10 billion to the deal, which is worth a total US$38 billion which has evidently been tracking the movements of the aircraft amid the bidding war between Oxy and Chevron, which last month offered to buy Anadarko for US$33 billion.

Yet another Gulfstream V trip earlier this month, according to Bloomberg, had Occidental flying to Paris as well, where Total is headquartered.

Related: Oil Production Booms… But Funding Is Drying Up

And now it looks like Shell is in the running as well, although in what capacity is not yet known.  Shell and Anadarko, CNBC recalls, have shared assets in the Permian, where Occidental is the top player and Anadarko is among the largest competitors. The acquisition of the latter would establish Occidental as an undisputed leader in a space that supermajors have been eager to tap as well, with all but one expanding their assets there and planning ambitious drilling campaigns.

The lone exception is Total, which has no shale acreage at all in the United States, which would make the Oxy jet’s trip to Paris all the more intriguing if, of course, it was made with the intention of meeting with Total at all.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

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2019-05-09 14:30:00Z
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Cramer: Teddy Roosevelt wouldn't even break up Facebook - CNBC

Facebook's co-founder Chris Hughes called for the company to be broken up in a New York Times op-ed Thursday, saying CEO Mark Zuckerberg's power has become too vast.

According to CNBC's Jim Cramer, that's not a move that even the president best known for smashing monopolies like the Standard Oil Company would make.

"I don't think TR would break up Facebook," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," referring to former President Theodore Roosevelt, whose administration was known for its strong enforcement of antitrust measures.

"For a long time all we cared about was that foreign companies were killing us," Cramer said. "So then we suddenly have these fabulous companies that are really dominant, and now we have to worry that our own dominant companies are killing us? Shouldn't we be proud?"

In his op-ed, Hughes argued that Zuckerberg now has "unilateral control over speech" and the company's strategy of acquiring and copying other businesses that could potentially compete with it has kept the social media landscape free from real threats to Facebook.

Cramer refuted the idea that Facebook is a monopoly that needs to be broken up, arguing that users can log off any time they'd like.

"In the end, this is a social media site," Cramer said. "It's not the American party like the Communist Party or the Soviet Union, I mean it's a darn social media site."

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Watch: Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes calls for the breakup of the company

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/09/jim-cramer-says-facebook-shouldnt-be-broken-up.html

2019-05-09 14:17:40Z
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Chevron walks away from Anadarko Petroleum deal, will collect $1 billion breakup fee - CNBC

Chevron said Thursday it will not submit a new offer to acquire Anadarko Petroleum, walking away from the deal after Occidental Petroleum pulled ahead in a battle to take control of the driller with prized assets in the top U.S. shale oil field.

The decision means Chevron will collect a $1 billion breakup fee, a windfall that it could use to purchase another driller in the Permian Basin, the engine of the American oil drilling boom.

Shares of the San Ramon, California-based oil major jumped about 3% in premarket trading following the announcement.

Anadarko announced on Monday that its board had unanimously decided that Occidental's revised $38 billion bid was superior to a $33 billion Chevron buyout. Anadarko said it intended to break its agreement with Chevron and strike a deal with Occidental if Chevron did not submit a better offer.

Occidental, with backing from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, offered to pay 78% cash and 22% stock for Anadarko, while the Chevron transaction was structured as a 75% stock and 25% cash deal.

"Winning in any environment doesn't mean winning at any cost. Cost and capital discipline always matter, and we will not dilute our returns or erode value for our shareholders for the sake of doing a deal," Chevron Chairman and CEO Michael Wirth said in a statement.

Chevron surprised the market on Thursday by announcing that it still intends to raise its share buyback program to $5 billion per year. Two weeks ago, Chevron executives told analysts the increase was contingent on the deal closing.

By taking control of Anadarko, Chevron stood to acquire the driller's vast acreage in the Permian region stretching from western Texas to southeastern New Mexico. Chevron is a major player in the Permian and plans to double its production from the basin by 2023.

The deal also would have combined Chevron and Anadarko's offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico, a source of precious cash flow. Chevron also prized Anadarko's liquefied natural gas export project in Mozambique, which would have expanded its footprint in the growing LNG market.

However, Chevron was outmaneuvered by its much smaller rival. After Occidental put in a higher bid, it secured a $10 billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway and arranged to sell Anadarko's African operations to French oil giant Total for $8.8 billion.

Those arrangements allowed Occidental to increase the cash component of its offer, which in turn meant the company would not have to put the transaction to a shareholder vote. That cleared up uncertainty about Occidental's ability to close the deal.

Occidental's battle is not over yet though.

Some of the company's stockholders are angry that they will not get to vote on the deal and are concerned that their investment will be diluted if Buffett exercises his option to buy up to 80 million shares of Occidental. Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub has also come under criticism for agreeing to pay a steep 8% annual dividend on Buffett's preferred stock investment.

Despite technically losing, some analysts applauded Chevron for avoiding a bidding war.

"Chevron did exactly the right thing and walked away, and the client feedback has been raining in positive," said Mizuho Securities analysts Paul Sankey. "The generalists particularly hated that the last decently performing sector in energy — mega-cap oil — was potentially losing its capital discipline."

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2019-05-09 13:47:05Z
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Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes: It's time to break up Facebook - CNN

In a lengthy opinion piece published Thursday by the New York Times, Hughes says that Zuckerberg has "unchecked power" and influence "far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government."

It's time, he writes, for regulators to break up Facebook (FB).

"Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," writes Hughes.

"I'm disappointed in myself and the early Facebook team for not thinking more about how the News Feed algorithm could change our culture, influence elections and empower nationalist leaders," he continues. "And I'm worried that Mark has surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them."

Hughes is the latest in a series of prominent entrepreneurs and tech executives to call for stricter regulation of Facebook and other online platforms. They are speaking out as countries around the world rush to put better controls in place following a wave of scandals related to data privacy, election meddling and the spread of misinformation.

Zuckerberg has signaled that he's open to some regulation. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post in March, the CEO tried to sketch out areas where he thought regulation should start.

In Hughes view, Facebook's calls for regulation are a way to head off a potential antitrust case.

Hughes, who has not worked at Facebook in over a decade, argues that Zuckerberg's competitive drive and quest for domination has led the company to control an estimated 80% of the world's social network revenue.

The entrepreneur says that Facebook is now a "powerful monopoly" that should be forced to reverse its acquisitions of Instagram and Whatsapp.

Hughes also says the US government should create a new agency to regulate tech companies.

"[Zuckerberg] has created a leviathan that crowds out entrepreneurship and restricts consumer choice. It's on our government to ensure that we never lose the magic of the invisible hand," Hughes writes.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/tech/facebook-chris-hughes-break-up/index.html

2019-05-09 12:28:00Z
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With new Fit technology, Nike calls itself a tech company - TechCrunch

Rae Witte Contributor

Rae Witte is a New York-based freelance journalist covering music, style, sneakers, art and dating, and how they intersect with tech. You can find her writing on i-D, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire and Forbes, among others.

More posts by this contributor

• Why women are indefinitely sharing their locations

In 1927, Charles Brannock, the son of a local shoe company owner in Syracuse, N.Y., invented the Brannock Device. The steel measurement tool with five scales has been the most effective way in the U.S. to find an accurate shoe size.

Industry-wide, 60% of consumers are wearing the wrong-sized shoes. Not only is there a discrepancy among different styles of shoes (high heels to leather boots), sizing can often differ from brand to brand within one type of shoe (like adidas sneakers to Nike sneakers) and even silhouette to silhouette within a singular brand.

For instance, I’ve owned Nike React Epic sneakers with Flyknit technology in a women’s size 10. I have men’s suede Nike Air Max 95s in a 9.5. All of my men’s Air Jordan 1s are comfortably a men’s size 8.5, but I have a women’s pair in an 11, and my Air Jordan 4s are an 8. Meanwhile, my Nike Air Max 720s feel decidedly too small at a men’s 8.5. And this is all within one brand.

During the 92 years since its introduction, the birth of the internet, and some other society-altering technological advances, the Brannock Device has somehow remained uncontested. Until now.

This summer, Nike will introduce Nike Fit, a foot-scanning solution designed to find every person’s best fit. Conceptually, Nike Fit falls somewhere between “why would we reinvent the wheel” and “we don’t even need that wheel.”

Nike Fit uses a proprietary combination of computer vision, data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence and recommendation algorithms to find your right fit. With sub two-millimeter accuracy through dozens of data points, measurements are fed into the machine learning model that accommodates every detail of every Nike silhouette down to the materials that were used, the lacing systems and other critical aspects of fit. This is then paired with AI capabilities to learn a wearer’s personal fit preference and how they relate to the population as a whole.

Users can either find their size with the augmented reality feature in the Nike app or, soon, visit participating stores to use the technology. I recently had the opportunity to do both.

Within the Nike app, I used my phone’s camera to capture an empty space where the floor meets the wall as a point of reference, with the app’s guidance ensuring a level plane. I stood with my heels against the wall I captured as my reference point and pointed the camera down at my feet as if to take a photo. Once my feet were properly aligned with the outline guide within the app, I simply touched the button that looks just like I’m taking a photo.

In seconds, this action scans the feet and collects 13 data points, the best of the 32 points Nike is capable of capturing. Despite all of the data being collected, users will only be offered the length and width measurements, down to the millimeter, of each foot individually.

“Augmented reality is a new type of experience for a lot of consumers and sets a lot of challenges for them,” says Josh Moore, Nike’s vice president of design and user experience. “We’ve been doing a lot of experiments and creating new features in our SNKRS app over the last few years where we really learned a lot about how to use augmented reality successfully. Specifically, we know we have to guide our users through the journey at their own pace so they can comprehend as they go.”

“We’re talking about phones with cameras measuring your feet,” Moore continues. “It’s a new type of experience where you’re using your device, the device’s camera, the 3D space around you, and you’re using your body. There’s no common UX pattern for this.”

The in-store experience differs in a few ways. It wasn’t enough to simply have great technology, it also had to reduce friction within the in-store buying process. The idea is to reduce the amount of time associates spend going back and forth grabbing sizes from the stock room in order to ensure time spent with customers is higher quality and more efficient.

At the Retail Lab on Nike’s campus, I stood on a mat while a Nike sales associate scanned my feet with a handheld iTouch device. With the measurements taken (my right foot is 1 millimeter longer than my left, while my left is 1 millimeter wider than my right), the associate can provide a range of sizes for me, which includes where my best fit could fall in any shoe in Nike’s catalog. Once they look up the shoe I’m interested in, the app will offer the best fit size for my measurements and that shoe. If it’s available, they’ll bring out that size, and if there is any disbelief, they’ll bring out the size you’d like to try, as well.

Trying the Nike Fit experience at the Retail Lab on Nike’s campus

Whether using the app to find the right fit and make a purchase or going into the store, associates and customers can record which size is purchased, as well as other personal preferences around fit.

“Before a shoe arrives onto the market, it will already be trained into the solution. But since the solution encompasses both machine learning and AI, its accuracy out of the gate is astonishing and just gets even better,” says Michael Martin, vice president of Nike direct products, growth and innovation.

With more data, Nike will not only have continual improvements of an individual’s fit preferences, it will also learn the greater population’s preferences around each specific model, offering insight on creating better-fitting shoes. 

In development for just over 12 months, Nike Fit was being tested in three stores — one each in Seattle, Dallas and Pasadena, Calif. — only six months after Nike acquired Israeli startup, Invertex, whose entire mission was to create scans of the human body for better fit customization.

“Fundamentally, at this stage, Nike is a technology company. It’s a technology company that builds upon its historical strengths in footwear design, storytelling and inspiration, and it’s able to use those in combination to solve problems that no one else can solve,” says Martin. “We think this is arguably our biggest solution to date.”

Despite being for footwear right now, the technology created for Nike Fit has the potential to change retail in a lot of ways. One can imagine women being able to use the tech to find the right bra size. It could also make buying denim easier. As individualism and inclusivity have become marketing tools, custom fit seems like a natural next step, but until now, there hasn’t been a clear-cut solution.

Nike Fit will be introduced in select stores in the U.S. and within the Nike app in early July 2019, with Europe to follow later in the summer.

Nike has always had a place in the conversation alongside the likes of Apple when upper echelon branding and storytelling is discussed. With the introduction of Nike Fit, Nike just does it — again.

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https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/09/with-new-fit-technology-nike-calls-itself-a-tech-company/

2019-05-09 11:31:19Z
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Schick razor maker Edgewell to buy shaving startup Harry's in $1.37 billion deal - CNBC

Schick and Wilkinson razor brands owner Edgewell Personal Care said on Thursday it would buy shaving startup Harry's Inc in a $1.37 billion cash-and-stock deal, to expand in a fast-growing U.S. grooming market.

Harry's is the latest shaving startup to be bought by a bigger rival and dwarfs Unilever's purchase of the U.S.-based Dollar Shave Club in 2016.

Unilever, Procter & Gamble and others have put more focus on men's grooming, trying to coax them into spending more on deodorants, skin creams and hair products.

The global men's grooming industry is expected to hit $78.6 billion by 2023 from $57.7 billion in 2017, according to a ResearchAndMarkets.com report.

New York-based Harry's sells razors, shaving creams, lotions, soaps and other grooming products, embossed with its quirky hairy elephant logo, as well as Flamingo line of women's razors and waxes.

Harry's founders Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider will join the executive team of Edgewell as co-presidents of the company's U.S. operations.

Edgewell will pay 79% of the deal value in cash and the rest in stock, giving Harry's shareholders an 11% stake in the combined company upon completion of the deal, expected by the end of first quarter of 2020.

Edgewell, which is in the process of exploring alternatives including the sale of its feminine care and infant care businesses, missed analysts expectations for second-quarter revenue due to the weak performance in the segments.

The New York Times had earlier reported about the deal on Thursday.

Goldman Sachs and Perella Weinberg Partners are financial advisers to Edgewell, while Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as the company's legal adviser.

Centerview Partners was the financial adviser to Harry's and Latham & Watkins and O'Melveny & Myers served as its legal advisers.

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2019-05-09 11:07:31Z
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