The failure to internalize—or perhaps even comprehend—the meaning of their own rhetoric about transparency is characteristic. American democracy was built on richly deserved fear, an anxiety that power might pool in one institution at everyone else’s expense. The tech companies have no such fear. The more they can insinuate themselves into our lives the better. There is no limit. Of course, it’s not their job to worry about their power. That anxiety falls to the rest of us, and we should be far clearer about the problem: Companies that are indifferent to democracy have acquired an outsized
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