Tech giants, once the saviours, are now seen as threats

Social media might have originally promised liberation, but it proved an even more useful tool for stoking anger

At the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media. That is the sort of story the tech industry loves to tell: it is bringing freedom, enlightenment and a better future for all mankind.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, said that this was why his social network existed. In a 2012 manifesto for investors, he said Facebook was a tool to create “a more honest and transparent dialogue around government.” The result, he said, would be “better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.”

Now tech companies are under fire for creating problems