No benefit in breaking up Facebook: COO Sandberg

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IANS | 18 May, 2019
As the chorus grows to break up Facebook, the social networking platform's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has said that it won't serve any purpose.

"You could break us up, you could break other tech companies up, but you actually don't address the underlying issues people are concerned about," she told CNBC in an interview on Friday.

"People are concerned about election security, content, privacy and data portability," Sandberg added.

Several US Senators have called for breaking up the social network amid repeated data breaches and privacy violations on the platform.

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris has stressed that authorities should take a serious look at breaking up Facebook as the social network platform is a "utility that has gone unregulated.

Another Democratic 2020 candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren has also stressed upon the possibility of breaking up Facebook.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, however, rejected these calls, saying the size of the social media giant was actually a benefit to its users and the security of the democratic process.

Facebook has kept aside $3 billion, anticipating a record fine coming from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) related to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that involved 87 million users.

In an opinion piece in The New York Times last week, Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes said the government must hold Mark (Zuckerberg) accountable.

"Mark's personal reputation and the reputation of Facebook have taken a nose-dive," wrote Hughes, adding that it was time to break up the company.