The second problem is that social networks are not easy to moderate or regulate. Whoever is making the decisions cannot win. And how should a nation state treat it – as a publisher or as a communications network, when really it is a bit of both? At least Sir Nick's successor, Joel Kaplan, a former senior staffer for George W Bush, will be better tuned to the mood music in DC today. The problem for Meta remains its founder. Zuckerberg owns 13pc of the company's shares but more than 50pc of the voting power, meaning he can do whatever he wants. Which wouldn't matter so much if his judgement was good – but he gets big things wrong. Zuckerberg ordered tens of billions of research and development dollars to be wasted on the "Metaverse" and nobody is interested. A week after a Meta executive boasted how it would "drive engagement" by creating fake, AI-generated accounts that we could chat to on Facebook, it began deleting them by the thousand. The problem, as CNN reported, is that they were too honest.