Dear Zuckerberg, This Not About Modi, But Soverignty

Mark Zuckerberg must have had many unpleasant mornings in his life. Testifying before Congress. Losing billions in market value. Being accused of helping elect presidents and overthrow governments at the same time.

But few would have amused him as much as New Delhi asking him to apologise within three days for taking down a reel featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The irony is delicious.

For years, Silicon Valley behaved like an enlightened empire. Its emperors wore T-shirts instead of crowns, quoted philosophers instead of generals, and spoke endlessly about "building communities." They assured us they merely provided platforms. They were neutral. They had no ideology. They only connected people.

Then, one fine day, they began deciding which President deserved a microphone and which Prime Minister deserved silence.

The world suddenly realised that Facebook was no longer a social network. It had become an invisible editor of public opinion.

Editors have always existed. Newspapers kill stories. Television channels bury uncomfortable news. Governments ban books.

But never before in history has a handful of young billionaires sitting in California acquired the power to influence conversations in almost every country on earth.

It is an extraordinary concentration of power.

The Modi reel controversy is not really about Narendra Modi. Tomorrow it could be Donald Trump. The day after, Emmanuel Macron. Or a village sarpanch somewhere in Karnataka whose speech disappears because an algorithm mistook politics for misinformation.

Algorithms, unlike judges, never explain themselves.

That is the trouble with modern technology. It makes decisions but rarely accepts responsibility.

Meta will undoubtedly say this was an error. Machines make mistakes. Artificial intelligence is still learning.

Very well.

If an ordinary citizen accidentally violates Meta's community standards, his account vanishes without appeal. His protests disappear into automated emails signed by nobody.

Surely the same principle must apply to Meta itself.

If machines can err, corporations can apologise.

India's parliamentary committee has therefore done something interesting. It has reminded Silicon Valley that sovereign governments are no longer willing to be treated like ordinary users clicking "Report Problem."

Whether asking Zuckerberg to apologise within three days is good politics or theatrical politics is another debate. But the larger message is unmistakable.

The age when Big Tech could shrug and say, "Our platform, our rules," is coming to an end.

Europe is regulating them. Australia has challenged them. Britain wants greater oversight. America itself cannot decide whether these companies are monopolies, publishers or public utilities.

India has chosen its own route.

The real question is not whether Zuckerberg should apologise.

The real question is whether Meta still believes it is merely a technology company.

Technology companies build roads.

Meta increasingly decides who may travel on them.

There is a difference.

For years, the internet was celebrated as humanity's greatest democratic invention. Every man became a publisher. Every woman became a broadcaster. Every opinion found an audience.

Then came algorithms.

Today, what you see is not what exists but what someone—or something—decides you should see.

George Orwell imagined Big Brother watching citizens.

He did not imagine citizens voluntarily carrying Big Brother in their pockets, charging him every night before going to bed, and thanking him for showing them cat videos.

Privacy disappeared so quietly that most people noticed only when advertisements began completing their thoughts.

Mention holiday plans over dinner, and travel advertisements greet you before dessert.

Speak of diabetes, and medicines chase you across the internet.

Talk politics, and invisible mathematical formulas quietly decide how many people will hear you.

No government in history—not Caesar, not Napoleon, not Stalin—possessed such intimate knowledge of ordinary lives.

Yet we surrendered it cheerfully.

Free email.

Free messaging.

Free photographs.

Nothing is free.

If you are not paying for the product, chances are you are the product.

This is why the Modi reel controversy matters.

Not because one video disappeared.

Videos vanish every minute.

What matters is that one mistaken deletion has forced governments everywhere to ask an uncomfortable question.

Who elected the algorithm?

The answer, of course, is nobody.

That is both its greatest strength and its greatest danger.

Democracies survive because power is divided.

Big Tech thrives because power is concentrated.

Somewhere between Parliament and Menlo Park lies the future of free speech.

One hopes both remember that freedom has always been too precious to be left entirely either to politicians—or to programmers.