Idiot voters and trolling the Internet: Russia, social media giants and US elections

The other point is also important: interference in the US elections has been habitual, a historical tic, a commonplace matter for outside powers keen to influence local opinion. Britain was particularly keen in swaying US public opinion during both World Wars, backing candidates favouring an intervention posture.

Earlier this year, then White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus pointed the finger at an ambitious China and niggling North Korea. "China has, North Korea has and they have consistently [interfered] over many, many years."

Why, then, inflate the Russian bear, giving it prodigiously extensive claws, and a grope of influence more significant than Harvey Weinstein? The point is simple: a Trump victory in November 2016 remains unbelievable, a cosh to the head, a mugging in broad daylight. The narcotised state that is current US politics, a Clinton defeat, and the inversion of the capital's ceremonial rituals, has made it incumbent on members on Congress to find a culprit.

The moral tones in Monday's Media Watch delivery seemed misplaced and, if taken to the next level, sinister. Social media platforms, the suggestion goes, should be tasked with policing information placed on its own networks with comb-like assiduity. The advertising police need to be charged. As Louisiana Senator John Kennedy told representatives of Facebook, Google and Twitter pointedly, "I think you do enormous good, but your power sometimes scares me."

Colin Stretch, Vice President and general counsel for Facebook, is quoted by Media Watch only to be scolded: "It pains us as a company. It pains me personally to see that we were, that our platform was abused in this way."

Facebook, goes the claim by Barry, should have seen that its platforms were being misused, notably "when the Internet Research Agency was paying for those posts." But Stretch, rightly, considered the inquisition on who was buying ads problematic – by Kennedy's own observation, the company had 5 million advertisers. "Of course the answer is no," conceded Stretch to the question on whether the company had an eye out for those opportunistic foreign agents or purchasers of political ads.

The unmistakable inference here is not merely that the US consumer of news (dare one say reader?) is an unmitigated fool best kept away from social media accounts, or, more appropriately, drip fed vetted material. It is, seemingly, a pitch for control, restraint and policing for those consumers in a land where freedom of speech is both creed and dogma. Leave it to those establishment patricians and censors who know best. The move towards patriotic proofing the social media giants is underway.