By looking at lessons from Victorian telegraph pioneers, Cold War history, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and George Orwell's 1984, host Niall Ferguson tells the story of how a decentralized, not-for-profit worldwide web shape-shifted to become a highly profitable network controlled by a tiny elite selling our attention for billions of dollars to the world's advertisers.

Originally released by PBS, 2020. Streaming video file encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on April 09, 2020.