Big Tech's capture of state authority seems easy in a world where it’s hard to escape the clutches of technology

Denmark has cancelled Christmas—or Christmas cards at any rate. From the end of this month, the nation’s postal service will no longer carry letters.

The announcement from the land that Shakespeare immortalized in Hamlet has delivered a metaphorical deathblow to one of the world’s oldest forms of communication, one that is headed for extinction.December is shaping up as that kind of month. Warnings about digital media and its barons are coming in thick and fast.

Earlier this month, the widely followed Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman labelled the US “a digital narco-state” in a searing Substack post. Last week, Edward Luce, a columnist of the Financial Times, derided the alarmingly pessimistic worldview of a group he called “the broligarchs,” a clever portmanteau of ‘tech bros’ and ‘oligarchs.’ Luce drew attention to the US government increasingly “playing the roles of lawyer, promoter, hit man and agent” for Meta, Palantir, X and others: “Trumpian populism may be the story of our age, but I am increasingly persuaded that we are underplaying the tech-authoritarian elephant in the room.” One need only watch less than 10 minutes of Palantir founder Alex Karp’s interview at a New York Times conference earlier this month to worry that broligarchs have an authoritarian mindset.

Karp, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk use their substantial power to exaggerate the ill effects of immigration while simultaneously appearing in favour of controlling immigration to favour Caucasians, their critics allege. In Karp’s case, Palantir’s software is being used by the US government to track down illegal immigrants.Meanwhile, it is hard to think of a tycoon who has meddled in politics as overtly as Elon Musk has.