Big Tech giants' omnipresence in digital life must be dealt with

ALL-KNOWING governments have long been feared, from fictional dystopias such as Nineteen Eighty-Four to contemporary concerns about CCTV states.

In contrast, public disquiet over the power wielded by social media giants - from their omnipresence in our digital lives to their vaults of consumer data - seems jarringly insufficient.

With many of their services being free, firms such as Facebook and Google might not be dubbed a traditional monopoly in the sense of being able to set consumer prices for the services they offer. But they arguably have a monopoly on a certain digital way of life. Just look at Huawei smartphone users' horrified reactions to the thought that they might lose access to Google apps and services, after the Trump administration put the China tech company on a trade blacklist and Google reportedly began cutting ties.