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 th…