I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. The point of all this stuff is we don’t have to rely on monolithic nodes of influence or combing the entire net on our own – we make up the equivalent by overlapping and sharing through our relatively small networks.

The social Internet is, essentially, word of mouth with potentially infinite depth and reach. It’s not perfect (because it’s powered by people’s brains) but it works.

So the average number of followers of people I follow has come down quite a bit, but I am better able to pay attention to what is being said.

PS I think that somewhere in the back of the logic for doing this I held the belief that if there was something going on that I ought to know about, then one of the people I follow would tweet or retweet about it, and so my tighter network of contacts would work as an intelligent filter. Equally, more focus allows me to assist others when they require assistance, as recently when I was able to forward editorialgirl’s query regarding a new Snickers variant, via one of my Twitter contacts, to a snack expert who then provided some fine information on the topic (not Topic – that’s hazelnuts). That’s the point, surely?

I guess what I’m asking is, why should we want bodies to regulate newspapers when they are no more, or no less, influential than some individuals who communicate to large numbers of people online?

We already have the legal system that can be used when a newspaper or individual breaks the law. Why do we need anything else?