The Greens want to make social media platforms subject to laws of defamation and libel just like publishers, newspapers and broadcasters. About time, says our Writer at Large

My concerns around digital technology’s disastrous effects on the media have been known for a long time. Around 20 years ago, a very rich British entrepreneur and I got together to see if we could harness my hatred of Big Tech and his lust for money into a strange alliance which might help the publishing industry.

I was subjected to a lot of love-bombing – helicopter rides to palatial homes for opulent dinners and such – while we tried to find a solution to what at first sounds a rather simple problem. We wanted to develop a business model which allowed you, the media consumer, to make micro-payments for each and every story you read online. You’d pay, say, 0.001p when you clicked on any story, in any publication. Easier said than done, though. How to aggregate every media company in the English-speaking world under one business model? That was the primary problem. Anyway, the man with the money seemed to prefer talking about this particular issue rather than doing, so we parted ways, amicably.

I resurrect this memory, only to make the point that I’ve considered digital technology an existential threat to reliable, traditional media since the internet arrived. Indeed, it’s a triple threat. I recall the late 1990s and the rush by traditional media to put "content" – a word I hate – online for free.

Read more by Neil Mackay

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