The theme tune of today’s social media crisis can be sung to the lyrics “too big to regulate”. Mark Zuckerberg has created Facebook in a way such that as his company grows, so too does his reach within the company through a dual-class shareholder system. We have, like by like and share by share, created a global information autocrat. The mislabelling of Facebook as a social media instead of a purely media platform provides robust protection, which won’t change anytime soon in the United States. Her research assesses the growing influence of US technology companies and their role in the global democratic process

Source: The Irish Times March 28, 2018 00:33 UTC