If regulators had applied some pointed pressure only a decade ago, when all the same warning signs were there, we could have prevented the mess we find ourselves in now, with rampant disinformation, egregious privacy breaches and in-plain-sight addictive elements built right into the medium…

But it feels too late, and in many ways it goes too far. The threat to break up the biggest companies is little more than rhetorical tech slamming that will not accomplish anything beyond making Senator Elizabeth Warren sound tough (she is tough, but not on this). Breaking up companies takes forever and is a drastic way to do what could have been done via actual laws now in place or intelligent changes in antitrust laws.

At the same time, in other ways the regulators are being too feeble. Sure, the endless grabbing of data by tech companies is offensive. But our government not even trying to pass a national privacy bill to protect users is more so.