Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back

by Beeban Kidron

This is an insider’s guide to how politicians and policy makers have sold our democracy to Silicon Valley and what we need to do to take it back.

In 2013, former Hollywood director Beeban Kidron made a ground-breaking documentary about the lives of children online. She uncovered a shocking story of exploitation and greed that changed everything – and ignited her relentless crusade to hold the tech giants accountable.

In Users, Kidron reveals everything she’s learned from her life as a campaigner and legislator, taking you inside the halls of Parliament and the UN to the White House and Silicon Valley. Through her encounters with lobbyists and tech bros, you’ll witness the ruthless tactics these powerful men use to lie, cheat and steal their way to unchecked power, all while avoiding the rules and regulations meant to protect us.

You’ll see how the issue is not technology itself, but its use and abuse. How tools built to connect people are redeployed to divide, punish, distract, and control; while our tech overlords come to own everything – but continue to be held responsible for nothing. Now that we know their game, it's time to fight back. This book will show you where it all went wrong, who's really to blame, and what we can do about it.

404 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 25, 2026

Reviews

[Nikki Hexum]

I loved "Users" by Beeban Kidron. It is inspiring and heartbreaking in almost equal measure, because it forces us to confront how much we have allowed technology to reshape our lives, our children, our culture and even our sense of human agency, often without ever truly choosing it.

But what stayed with me most was that the book is ultimately hopeful. Kidron does not treat the power of technology companies as inevitable or permanent. She reminds us that these systems were built by people, that the rules governing them were choices, and that different choices are still available to us.

This book feels especially important right now. The scale and power of the companies shaping our digital world can make resistance feel almost futile. "Users" is a reminder that it isn’t. Power changes when people recognize their collective agency and decide that the status quo is no longer acceptable.

I finished the book frustrated by how much we have already surrendered, but genuinely inspired by what remains possible. We are not powerless. We can demand better systems, better laws, better technology and a future in which human beings are not simply “users” to be measured, manipulated or monetized.

Ultimately, that was the hope I took from this book: we can still act, and we can act together.

[Julian Walker]

Supremely well written and argued, this is a chilling example of the harmful impact that technology companies have on society - especially the young.

Made even more scary by the current US Leader’s refusal to impose controls on tech and AI development, this book lays out the blueprint for what can go (and is indeed going) wrong with addictive social media feeds.

Hugely insightful and well written, everyone should read this book.