Mark Zuckerberg has great power. But is he responsible?

“With great power comes great responsibility” — Uncle Ben

Mark Zuckerberg — Facebook’s CEO — is probably the most powerful person alive today. He may even be the most powerful person ever.

Traditionally, the president of the United States has been considered the most powerful person on Earth. After all, President Obama controls the most powerful military on the planet and has considerable influence over the US$18 trillion US economy.

But President Obama is beholden to systems that keep his power in check: congress and the supreme court, term limits (he will be forced to retire in January), and the will of the American electorate.

Mark Zuckerberg has none of these limitations. His power flows from Facebook, the seventh largest corporation on the planet by market capitalization, of which he owns 18 percent of the stock and controls 60 percent of the voting rights.

At 32 years of age, he could remain the CEO of Facebook for another 50 years.

But financials are just a small part of what makes Facebook so powerful. Here are some ways it dominates human attention:

• More than one billion people use Facebook each day. 1/4 of all time spent on the internet is spent using Facebook.
• For many people, Facebook is the internet. It’s the first place most people go to announce weddings, births, deaths, and other major life events.
• Facebook is increasingly becoming the place where people consume other forms of media.

Through its Free Basics program, Facebook has literally become the internet for the world’s poor. The company has also used its monopoly on human attention to control what news is shown to whom, affecting public opinion from the shadows.

And Facebook knows far more about humanity — and individual humans — than any other company or government on Earth. 500 terabytes of our personal data flow into Facebook every day.

So far, Zuckerberg has mainly used this power to further grow Facebook. He’s acquired the company’s most serious competitors: Instagram and WhatsApp. He’s now competing with YouTube for video and Twitter for real-time communication.

But is he responsible?

Facebook everywhere

Facebook is a threat to the open web

What can you do about it?

Making the experience more bearable