'They've bulldozed competition': Elizabeth Warren applauds Facebook cofounder's call to break up the tech giant into 3 companies

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who is running for president in 2020, celebrated Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes call to break up Facebook on Thursday.
• "Chris Hughes is right. Today's big tech companies have too much power-over our economy, our society, & our democracy," Warren tweeted.

• Hughes, who cofounded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg in their Harvard dorm in 2004, on Thursday warned of the "dangers of Facebook's monopoly" and argued that Zuckerberg has amassed "unprecedented and un-American" personal power.

• Warren rolled out her own plan in March to break up the largest US tech companies, including Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat who is running for president in 2020, celebrated Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes' call to break up Facebook two months after Warren rolled out her own plan to break up the largest US tech companies, including Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

"Chris Hughes is right. Today's big tech companies have too much power-over our economy, our society, & our democracy," Warren tweeted on Thursday morning. "They've bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses & stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech."

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Hughes, who started Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg in their Harvard dorm in 2004, on Thursday warned of the "dangers of Facebook's monopoly" and argued that Zuckerberg has amassed "unprecedented and un-American" personal power.

"Every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment and, finally, resignation," Hughes wrote in a New York Times op-ed, adding that the company's domination in the market restricts competition and hurts its two billion users.

Hughes also argued that Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram should be broken into three different companies.

Read more: A Facebook cofounder has written a blistering New York Times op-ed arguing that Mark Zuckerberg's social network should be torn apart

Warren's plan includes a call for "platform neutrality" - barring tech giants from both providing a marketplace and selling their product on the same marketplace - and the appointment of new regulators that would undo mergers between massive tech companies. She argues that such mergers smother competition and undermine democracy.

"That means we break Facebook away from Instagram and WhatsApp, Amazon away from Whole Foods, Google away from Nest, and more," Warren wrote in a campaign email.

Read more: Elizabeth Warren says she wants to break up big tech companies, including Amazon, Google, and Facebook

The proposal would impose new regulations on two tiers of companies: those with annual global revenue of at least $25 billion and those with revenue between $90 million and $25 billion.

Warren is the first 2020 candidate to propose a detailed policy to rein in the power of tech giants. Other candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar, have supported tighter regulations.