Yesterday in an op-ed, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes called for the social-media behemoth to be broken up. Now, the company has responded, resisting the idea by saying that the real solution is “the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet.” Nick Clegg, a Facebook vice president, told the Verge: “Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company.”
The New York Times reports that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar, had been opposed to the release of two Pulitzer-winning Reuters reporters, U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo, who were freed recently after spending sixteen months in jail. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was once a political prisoner herself, eventually relented in the face of international pressure.
The Guardian talks to novelist Diana Evans about her favorite books.
In the New Yorker, Joyce Carol Oates reviews Ted Chiang’s new story collection, Exhaliation, which was published this week. Oates observes that science-fiction doesn’t always have to be dystopian: “Chiang’s vision of the future turns out to be unexpectedly optimistic. After all, the narrator observes, writing itself is a technology, and we became ‘cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers.’”
Tomorrow, Brooklyn Public Library is hosting the Press Fest with CLMP and PEN World Voices, highlighting the work of small publishing houses and literary magazines.
