Facebook started out by inspiring admiration for its ability to connect people and help them trace down long-lost relatives, former school mates and old flames.
But as it has grown bigger and bigger, Facebook increasingly looks like a black hole that swallows up small businesses, livelihoods, and, in the end, democracy itself.
Facebook’s troubles were to be expected. The company’s main ambition has always been to harvest, use and even, in some self-confessed instances, manipulate information about people based on finding out and studying their emotions. To achieve this, it would even turn down business from people who do not want to share their personal details with it.