You're probably right, and the EU are trying at least - but there's also an argument that once "the genie is out of the bottle", there's no way to stuff it back

You're probably right, and the EU are trying at least - but there's also an argument that once "the genie is out of the bottle", there's no way to stuff it back in. A friend of mine makes a very persuasive argument that Facebook has demonstrated how to manipulate vast numbers of people at mass scale - so much so that shutting Facebook down would no longer make any difference - now that it's known to be possible, it's much easier for anybody else to copy what's public and work out how to make the "private" algorithms work. A long-ish read, but a lot of that argument is here: https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-last-days-of-reality/ https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-last-days-of-reality/ and here: https://ukvid.net/video/mark-pesce-on-the-end-of-reality-fPA9g7y2F2w.html https://ukvid.net/video/mark-pesce-on-the-end-of-reality-fPA...