Oh look…the wheels are falling off

I’m not one to rubberneck at traffic accidents, but I am fascinated watching the wheels fall off social media.

First Facebook and Twitter scored an own-goal by banning Donald Trump in acts that demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt what everyone (except Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey) knew already – they are publishers. We’ll return to the implications of that shortly.

Then Google strong-armed the Australian government over impending legislation and, by threatening to turn off its search engine, acknowledged what everyone (except Larry Page and Sergey Brin) knew already – it is a monopoly. We’ll come back to that, too.

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Change must be highly contagious

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought much-needed and urgent changes in journalism around the world, with more to come. New Zealand has so far been shielded from the worst effects of the contagion and this year will determine whether our media have been lulled into the same dangerous complacency that stopped the country’s shoppers from using contact-tracing scanners while infection rates skyrocket overseas.

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Before I was rudely interrupted…

I feel a little like onetime Daily Mirror columnist Cassandra.

During the Second World War, Cassandra (Sir William Connor) was a victim of newsprint shortages that saw his column suspended. When it resumed at war’s end, he began his column with “As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted…”

The interruption to the Tuesday Commentary on theknightlynews.com can’t be blamed on the international situation, although it is tempting to blame Covid-19 for everything from shortages to Deep State shenanigans. No, it was of my own making.

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