The portents point to an overwhelming march towards autocracy. A country in the throes of unremitting crises in the political, economic and social fields will inevitably give rise to opposition and dissent. This is what the present dispensation has set out to control, if not quash. First it was the mainstream media.

Newspapers are today a pale reflection of a once vibrant print media, even under the worst military dictatorships in our history, when journalists learnt to ‘creatively’ write between the lines, relying on the intelligence of the reader to discern the invisible fine print. Television, with its already deserved accolade of the ‘idiot box’, today is several lengths beyond even idiocy.

Dictated content and choice of appearances, all subsumed within the looming weapon of the ‘cut-off’ switch, renders our plethora of ‘news’ channels unwatchable, except by the suffering few who are compelled to be tortured thus because of professional reasons. Now that the mainstream media has been ‘tamed’ it appears to be the turn of the social media.

When the internet, and subsequently social media, burst upon the stage, everyone welcomed this blossoming of freedom of expression and speech.

With time, the flaws in giving everyone with a cellphone the ability to post just about anything, did betray the depth of foolishness that surprisingly resides hidden hitherto amongst humanity as a whole.

Hopeful minds comforted themselves with the thought that this was terra incognita, and would soon settle down to more acceptable norms. That........

© Business Recorder