Roger McNamee: ‘Facebook is a threat to whatever remains of democracy in the US'

An early investor in Facebook outlines the unprecedented scale of power wielded by the social media giants - and sets out his blueprint for reform

• John Naughton on how Facebook could stop Biden's progress to the White House
• Q&A with Facebook whistleblower Yael Eisenstat
• Carole Cadwalladr: If you're not terrified about Facebook, you haven't been paying attention

Does Facebook have too much power?
The scale of internet platforms such as Google and Facebook is unprecedented in the tech world and, I would argue, unprecedented since the Dutch East India Company. They are ubiquitous in almost every country that has an economy. And when you are ubiquitous, the political imperative is to align with power.

And that is why in countries such as the Philippines Facebook has been used to marshal public opinion in support of death squads. In Cambodia, it is being used to suppress dissent. In Myanmar it was used to incite ethnic cleansing. That's what happens in authoritarian regimes.