Happy 20th birthday, Facebook… isn’t it now time you grew up?

They may be mighty, those new tech giants, the digital masters of the universe, their owners some of the richest people in the history of the world, and wielding vast power and influence over the lives of people who use their services – but they can still be forced to account for their actions and made to apologise for the harms they cause. This week, he ought to have been untroubled by pesky politicians while he celebrates the 20th birthday of his creation, now part of his even bigger group, Meta, which includes Instagram, Threads and the plotting politician’s favourite app, WhatsApp, each a substantial, global business in its own right. It was Missouri senator Josh Hawley, ambitious even by the standards of the breed, who took it upon himself to demand that Zuckerberg prostrate himself before them – and take actual, personal responsibility for what had happened to people the billionaire boss doesn’t know and has never met: “Would you like to apologise for what you’ve done to these good people?” As Hawley called on the families to hold up the pictures of the kids who were harmed and lost their lives via the misuse of Meta platforms by perverts and criminals, this was a rather rhetorical “request”. Lindsey Graham was more measured than Hawley but he still accused the social media bosses arraigned before him, including representatives of X, TikTok, Snapchat and Discord of “destroying lives, and threatening democracy itself … I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands.” There comes a point in such emotional and frankly insoluble issues, such as the role, accountability and liability of social media companies, when the arguments have to stop and action has to start. Yet the politicians and the victims’ families are surely also right to highlight what happens when social media becomes antisocial.