THE SYSTEM

A fascinating exposé of the world behind your screen Timely often disturbing and so important Caroline Criado Perez author of Invisible Women Takes us beyond Zuckerberg Bezos et al to a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it Fascinating engaging and important Observer Could not be more timely SpectatorThe internet is a network of physical cables and connections a web of wires enmeshing the world linking huge data centres to one another and eventually to us All are owned by someone financed by someone regulated by someone We refer to the internet as abstract from reality By doing so we obscure where the real power lies In this powerful and necessary book James Ball sets out on a global journey into the inner workings of the system From the computer scientists to the cable guys the billionaire investors to the ad men the intelligence agencies to the regulators these are the real life figures powering the internet and pulling the strings of our society Ball brilliantly shows how an invention once hailed as a democratising force has concentrated power in places it already existed that the system in other words remains the same as it did before