Governments around the world had long ignored Commonwealth’s growing influence. The company’s policy of maintaining the feed as a neutral piece of global infrastructure helped sustain the illusion that politicians were still the ultimate power brokers. The feed was a tool. A useful one, to be sure. But the people who used tools were the ones in charge, not the people who made them. That’s why, from Washington’s perspective, Silicon Valley was the nation’s inventor, not its ruler.
