{"id":395432,"date":"2018-01-26T12:01:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T12:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=395432"},"modified":"2018-01-26T12:01:37","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T12:01:37","slug":"facebook-google-criticised-george-soros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/01\/facebook-google-criticised-george-soros\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook and Google criticised by George Soros"},"content":{"rendered":"
The billionaire investor George Soros has criticised tech “monopolies” such as Facebook and Google, calling them a threat to democracy.<\/p>\n
At his annual dinner at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Soros warned that social media platforms were “obstacles to innovation”.<\/p>\n
He raised concerns about their power to shape people’s attentions.<\/p>\n
However, he predicted their days were numbered because tax policy and regulation would catch up with them.<\/p>\n
Mr Soros also called the Trump administration a “danger to the world”, adding that he believed the president would be gone by 2020 “or sooner”.<\/p>\n
‘Lost freedom’<\/strong><\/p>\n But the outspoken financier reserved his strongest criticism for what he called the “unprecedented and transformative” effects of large internet firms.<\/p>\n “The power to shape people’s attention is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies,” Mr Soros told assembled guests.<\/p>\n Referencing Google and Facebook several times during his speech, he said: “It takes a real effort to assert and defend what John Stuart Mill called ‘the freedom of mind’.<\/p>\n “There is a possibility that once lost, people who grow up in the digital age will have difficulty in regaining it.”<\/p>\n He cautioned that this would have “far-reaching political consequences”, and had already played a large role in the election of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Facebook declined to comment, while Google did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n The 87-year-old repeatedly praised EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, whom he said would be the social media companies’ “nemesis”.<\/p>\n