Mark Zuckerberg is now arguably the most powerful person on earth. I don’t remember voting for him. Do you?
Do you realize that we’re now dependent on one company to play a major role in protecting the integrity of elections worldwide? And that one person has the power to unilaterally make all important decisions for that company?
Our government’s job is to protect us from consolidation and abuse of power that threatens our democracy. We already know how Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks influenced the last election and unwitttingly contributed to the rise of an authoritarian regime. We’re now seeing credible reports that it’s happening all over again.
Our democracy is dying, in slow motion, right before our eyes.
Three years ago, Mr. Read was struck by a similar pledge from Mr. Zuckerberg to “ensure the integrity” of the German elections. The commitment was admirable, he wrote, but also a tacit admission of Facebook’s immense power. “It’s a declaration that Facebook is assuming a level of power at once of the state and beyond it, as a sovereign, self-regulating, suprastate entity within which states themselves operate.”