DAVOS • There is always a fundamental tension at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos about what business does and what it says. Nowhere is this tension greater than in the conversation around Big Tech, and the challenges that surveillance capitalism poses to competition, privacy and civil liberty, even as it is increasingly enriching companies in not just the tech sector, but also in every industry.

During the first full day of WEF programming, there were plenty of official sessions about things such as how to govern data and run digital economies fairly, though they were marked with a techno-optimism that was decidedly out of touch with the general population's concern about the disruptive effects of the digital economy regarding their jobs and politics.