The new cold war: how our focus on Russia obscures social media's real threat

We should welcome politicians' growing skepticism about Silicon Valley - but not if it means authoritarian interventions into our digital lives

Washington used to worship Silicon Valley. Few things made politicians' hearts beat faster than the bipartisan love for big tech. Silicon Valley was building the future. Government's role was to offer compliments and get out of the way.

Recently, however, the mood has shifted. Both sides of the political divide seem to be awakening to the possibility that letting the tech industry do whatever it wants hasn't produced the best of all possible worlds. "I have found a flaw," Alan Greenspan famously said in 2008 of his free-market worldview, as the global financial system imploded. A similar discovery may be dawning on our political class when it comes to its hands-off approach to Silicon Valley.