Social networks are creating a global crisis of democracy by Niall Ferguson

Social networks are creating a global crisis of democracy by Niall Ferguson

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/niall-ferguson-social-networks-and-the-global-crisis-of-democracy/article37665172/?utm_source=Hoover+Daily+Report&utm_campaign=91734bb48b-HDR_1-10-18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_21b1edff3c-91734bb48b-72863337

Excerpt: sc!" It's the key on the top left of the keyboard that you hit frantically when your laptop crashes. Confronted by the ghastly reality that some of their proudest creations – Google, Facebook and Twitter – helped propel Donald Trump into the White House, the tech titans of Silicon Valley are hitting esc like panic-stricken sophomores whose term papers have frozen before they clicked on the "save" icon. "Content moderators" are being hired by the thousand. Fake accounts are being closed. The News Feed is being "fixed." Esc, esc, esc. But that page is still frozen. And it will take more than esc to fix this. More like ctrl+alt+del. It wasn't supposed to be this way. For a time, it seemed as if the internet was on democracy's side, helping the crowds in Cairo's Tahrir Square or Kiev's Maidan topple terrible tyrants.