Richard Keys and Andy Gray furore shows sportspeople should not underestimate power of the web

Caught out: Australia cricket captain Michael Clarke found himself under fire following an innocuous tweetPhoto: AP

By Simon Briggs10:07PM GMT 28 Jan 2011

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TV used to be a one-way process, in which old-fashioned authority figures commandeered the airwaves to dispense their so-called wisdom (and you dont get much more old-fashioned than Keys and Gray).

All that has changed since the rise of social networking. Today, every viewer can make his or her views heard. At least, as long as they have broadband in the house.

Now that we are all connected by Facebook, Twitter or any number of other sites watching TV can be like going to the theatre in the Elizabethan age, when heckling and even fruit-throwing were all part of the fun.

If our TV experts are irritating or ill-informed, they will soon be ridiculed via blogs and tweets. If they say something offensive, it finds its way onto the internet within seconds. In this case, the whole process went further, as stolen footage from within Sky HQ led to the departure of both men.

The old saying that sunshine makes the best disinfectant has become the slogan of the Wikileaks generation. (Only, since these hackers spend most of their time in darkened rooms, they have changed the first word to eyeballs.)