Facebook and Google, and other large technology companies, are some of the most powerful companies to ever exist. They touch every aspect of our lives, and decisions made by a few CEOs in Silicon Valley have a bigger impact on billions of people than their own governments. This lecture sets out the complicated landscape of Big Tech power, and whether it presents a threat to public power (governments, elections and democracy). The ongoing question of regulating the technology juggernauts may prove to be the great legal issue of our time.

This lecture was given by Matt Bartlett, lawyer and Research Fellow at Auckland Law School.