Facebook has 2.27bn users, nearly 1bn more people than there are in China. Perhaps that’s why the company has consistently acted as though it was above government.

A New York Times investigation last week revealed how founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg leveraged lobbying might and personal clout to deflect responsibility from Facebook for the spread of inflammatory content amid allegations that Russians manipulated the 2016 US elections. The story speaks volumes about the depth and breadth of oligopoly in America. It is a problem that has driven US political polarisation over the past decade and will surely pervade the 2020 presidential elections. 

In 2008, Washington bailed out the most powerful banks and left ordinary homeowners to take losses. We can argue about the economic rationale for this, but the political result was the emergence of a narrative that the system had been captured by a small group of rich, powerful people. It drove voters on both ends of the spectrum away from the centre.