...In addition to warning that U.S. President Donald Trump represents an immense "danger" to civilization, billionaire George Soros used the spotlight of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday to urge the international community to take seriously the threats posed by Facebook and Google, which he said could ultimately spawn "a web of totalitarian control" if they are not reined in.

Particularly alarming, Soros said, is the prospect of Facebook and Google - which he scathingly deemed a "menace" to society - teaming up with "authoritarian states" to "bring together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with an already developed system of state-sponsored surveillance."