Even before Donald Trump left the real-estate and frozen-steak business to run for public office, the reality of the Internet had become unglued from its utopian promise. In 2010, the creators of Twitter cheered as they watched their messaging platform used to help bring down corrupt regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. They couldn’t have predicted that six years later, it would topple the American presidency, too. Or that Facebook, which began in a Harvard dorm room as a “Hot or Not” knockoff, would be weaponized by the Russians as the world’s most powerful propaganda platform.

Tim Wu, who invented the term “net neutrality,” may be one of the few visionaries in the tech industry to understand what it all means, and what we can do about it. On this week’s Inside the Hive, he explains how Trump used technology to hijack our brains, why Facebook will end up being regulated like a glorified telephone company, and why the F.C.C.’s latest move against a free and open Internet is even more terrifying than it sounds.

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