Joe Mathews Today’s methods for governing the Internet do not constitute a coherent system, much less a democratic one. Instead, Internet governance is a contest for power between the most powerful tech companies, who put their shareholders first and want the Internet to be a free-for-all, and national governments, which prioritize the political interests of their own officials. In this contest, both sides create the pretense of democracy. Based in Menlo Park, Facebook has created its own “independent oversight” board of global experts, though it’s unelected, and chosen by Facebook. The European Union touts its tougher regulation of privacy and the Internet—but those regulators are also unelected, and impose their rules on people far from Europe.