But while Washington was struggling to understand how to go on the offense against groups that were using social media as a way to organize attacks, Silicon Valley was still unable or unwilling to face the extent of the problem. For years the world’s most brilliant technologists convinced themselves that once they connected the world, a truer, global democracy would emerge. They rejoiced when Twitter and WhatsApp made the Arab Spring possible, and were convinced they had built the weapon that would tear down autocrats and beget new, more transparent democracies.
