New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

Olivier Sylvain, "Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back" (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)

Published: May 9, 2026

Duration: 31:54

Recovering the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control-And How We Can Take It Back (Columbia Global Reports, 2026)is an indictment of how Big Tech cloaks ruthless commercial exploitation in the language of free speech. Olivier Sylvain, a leading legal scholar and former senior advisor at the Federal Trade Commission, exposes the incentives behind social media design, revealing how they trap users in cycles of addiction, misinformation, and harm—from fatal TikTok challenges to AI chatbot codependency.

With clarity and urgency, Sylvain dismantles the libertarian mythology that shaped internet law and calls for a new legal regime that prot...