WHAT A ZUCK-UP

As Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went down last week, the world divided into two camps: those who felt blessed relief, and those who’d already downloaded Signal. Novel as it was, for the billions of users who rely on these platforms to communicate with loved ones or run their businesses, it was impossible not to question why such a powerful monopoly is allowed to exist. Mark Zuckerberg may have lost an estimated £4.4bn from the outage, but he can afford to. He bought Instagram and WhatsApp because they were a threat, and nobody stopped him. The digital realm should be as assiduously policed for monopolies as the physical one. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.