05/04/17 - Are we finally reacting to the disruptive supremacy of Facebook and Google?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/26/finally-reacting-disruptive-supermacy-of-facebook-and-google

The article focuses on the different aspects of how new digital media can be considered harmful to society. It also takes into account of the words of Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the world wide web and says that these are worrying times as same values of the internet are now being abused to further specific agendas of corporations and politicians. The article further takes into account of the fact that Germany has been challenging Facebook and Google has agreed to policing its adverts. These are events that are going to be shaping the internet for years to come.

• As Tim Berners-Lee, the web’s inventor, wrote in a salutary open letter to mark its birthday, these are worrying times.
• The combination of losing control of our personal data, the monumental growth of misinformation and fake news and evolution of abusive, targeted “programmatic” advertising, particularly political advertising, constitutes a mortal threat to our civilisation.
• Trump in the US and Brexit in Europe, events possibly influenced by the new disregard for fact and capacity to manipulate, are but storm warnings of where these trends are taking us.
• In the UK, the government has taken powers to survey and monitor our emails and texts. 
• In the private sector, Facebook and Google know more about our preferences, which can be shamelessly exploited by political and commercial advertisers. 
• Meanwhile, the German government, with the EU commission, is preparing to fine social networking sites up to $50m if they fail to take down fake news, hate speech and defamatory content within 24 hours of it being posted.

I personally think this is a very interesting argument. I think it is absolutely necessary for the internet to have some kind of gatekeeping in order to reduce the increasing amount of fake news. However, it is important to note that although gatekeeping for the internet can be good, it can easily be manipulated and twisted in a way that people in authority can set up rules and regulation that suit them and their agendas rather than the public interest of the society.