Looking for holiday gifts, or just a good read? Put these books on your list. It was the tech industry’s ugliest year yet. Facebook was forced to reckon with its role in the 2016 election and general mass manipulation, while the American public is taking a break. Lawyers for Google, Facebook, and Twitter sat mouth agape in front of Congress trying to answer fairly basic questions about their social platforms. Uber and Google settled a big dispute over intellectual property that may or may not have been based on legitimate patent claims.