Silicon Valley titan Airbnb breaks ranks in admitting its power

New York

IN recent years, the idea of privilege - for whites, for men, for straights, and for others - has moved to the fore of American discourse.

Yet, one of the fastest-growing forms of power in our moment has gone relatively undetected: the power that comes with dominating the digital infrastructure that people have less and less of a choice not to ply.

Even as certain networks rise in Silicon Valley, many of their leaders reject the idea that they hold any kind of network privilege and cling to the idea that they are just platforms, mere bulletin boards for users to make their own arrangements.

Despite efforts to persuade the leaders of these networks to acknowledge the power that comes with privilege - beseeching them to purge their sites of abuse, or take care of driv…