The Gags Don't Work, They Just Make It Worse

It's not just the media that is changing, but seemingly the control people can have over what is said that is changing too. A year ago the Trafigura scandal might have been picked up by a few blogs, but this morning there have been literally thousands of people discussing it openly on Twitter. This would never have happened had the Guardian been allowed to quietly go on and publish what they had to say.

Mr Eugenedies

is right to employ the

Barbara Streisand theory

:

"One day these highly-remunerated libel lawyers are going to wake up and realise that they aren't being paid in guineas any more and that, thanks to this thing called the Interwebs, they can't shut down freedom of speech the way they used to in the old days. On the contrary; as Barbara Streisand found to her cost, 99% of people don't give a shit about 99% of stuff, right up the moment when you start waving your arms up and down telling them to stop reading about it."

Can see this story going down as a case study for a long time to come.