At the risk of bad taste, it occurs to me that Baby P and the BNP have several things in common. They both consist of the same number of syllables, share first and last letters, and have the word ‘evil’ used in relation to them most days of the week.

But where the internet is concerned, these subjects highlight two opposite ends of the spectrum. One of them has exposed the uncontrollable pitfalls of web 2.0, while the other has exposed itself to the net’s democratic triumphs.

Over the past couple of weeks, the horrifying story of Baby P has permeated everything from tabloid headlines to chat shows, and web traffic has been no different.

But it’s that ‘traffic’ element that separates the internet from the rest. Whereas TV and newspapers mainly act as engines that drive such stories on, web 2.0 goes beyond this by also offering an outlet for whatever a story provokes.

While tabloids busied themselves prising ever more sickening details from the tragedy, this networked Britain of ours, stoked with moral outrage, sought to vent that fury with a vigilante quest to publish the names of Baby P’s killers.

In doing so those responsible broke a controversial but crucial court order, and thus undermined the very legal system they slated for protecting child killers.

Information, once controlled even in the fullest democracy by a select few, is now the weapon of the masses. The law is trampled in the face of this lawless cyberspace; as the Telegraph’s Shane Richmond pointed out, current legislation will not survive web 2.0 – and many in media agree.

The terrifying point is: what law comes in its place? In light of such cases as the above, a full and open net democracy seems unworkable, leaving the alternative of a fascist web state, where IP addresses are ruthlessly hunted down until every court order-breaking blogger is locked up for long enough to deter even the angriest of Sun readers.

Yet while it may be ushering in fascism with one hand, the web is stamping on its head with the other.

BNP councillor Richard Barnbrook caused something of a stir a few months ago when he began blogging on My Telegraph – that paper’s pioneering attempt to make its readers feel younger.

The Guardian was particularly scathing in its reaction, but missed the mark entirely – ironically sounding more like the reactionary stereotype of the Telegraph we know and love.

The BNP, as with the Nazis before them, are at their most dangerous when they have control over information, able to keep those niggling bits of racism in their agenda quiet while championing their patriotic wholesomeness.

By exposing his agenda to the networked masses, Barnbrook exposed the BNP to the other, better side of web democracy: enlightened fascist-bashing.

Amidst the two-way and very congested road of 2.0, Barnbrook’s rhetoric is either crowded out or occasionally subject to being pulled apart. His ridiculous voice is silenced, save for the sporadic flushing sound whenever he receives a comment.

If the powers that be tried to crush the sort of networking, however misguided, that led to the Baby P names being published, then they would also crush our ability to steamroll the worst facets of society like Barnbrook and his BNP.

The internet is now too large, too unchained, and too powerful to tame. Regrettably then, it must be the system that bends to the people.

How? Good question.

Such was the spellbinding late-night nature of last Tuesday evening that by the time Adam Tinworth took the Online stage 36 hours later I was still suffering a dizzying election hangover.

Unable to shut out images of state county maps and David Dimbleby’s crucifixion, I desperately tried to pick out a few key lectural words to keep up to speed. And the one that stuck out was ‘traffic’.

Unfortunately, all that did was conjure yet more electoral flashbacks, in particular the image of tens upon thousands of delirious Obama lovers being shepherded into Grant Park to await their hero’s speech, rampaging across the grass like something out of a Braveheart.

It seemed though to sum up his entire journey to the Oval Office: endless hordes of multiracial, multicultural, multi-everything people being herded to him in enthusiastic droves.

And there is only one place you can drum up that kind of overwhelming momentum without borders or boundaries, and that’s the internet. 

Obama’s use of the web may be no secret, but the scale of his online achievements has been overshadowed by those who cite economic meltdown or McCain’s taste in mates as being behind Barack’s victory.

He was not the first politician to use the internet to make a bit of extra cash and a few more friends, but he is the first to fully exploit web 2.0, as the NY Times rightly notes.

Unlike both his predecessors and contemporaries, Obama was pro-active from before even Day One in squeezing every drop from the web, rather than the reactive approach of other would-be nominees, or the utterly inactive stance of his opponent.

When Obama took to a podium over 21 months ago to announce his running for the presidency, a small gaggle of his supporters quietly moved through the audience as he spoke. In one sitting, they collected hundreds of email addresses from crowd members, who were then contacted and urged to email their own family and friends, and so the networking continued relentlessly. 

By the time of his victory, Obama practically owned the internet.

We as pending journalists will have to take the same approach – Web 2.0 is not a case of keeping up with the game but of actually going out and playing it. While other politicians laid their lot out there and waited for the votes and cash to roll in, Obama hunted them down mercilessly with his Blackberry. That’s change we need, people!

It seems that BBC Business Editor Robert Peston is himself more controversial than many of the stories he reports; his renown is so great, that he has even become something of a sex symbol.

Probably a power thing – some raw erotic energy that comes from his Zeus-like ability to foretell financial apocalypse.

Peston’s fame, or perhaps infamy, was clearly not lost on Matthew Yeomans last week, as he cited the BBC man’s shrewd manipulation of The Blog. Applause has to be given for Peston’s cunning plan of breaking news on his own page when and how he likes, ensuring him a cosy place at the top of BBC bulletins to the continued relief of infatuated housewives everywhere.

I’m not going to wade in on the debate over his influence on money markets and what not, as if I hear the phrase ‘credit crunch’ many more times I may have to section myself.

No, what concerns me is this notion of blogs, however reputable, being used as news. The possible consequences of this are unsettling.

We know how stories reported through blogging are treated and circulated in a different way to more ‘standard’ news. Whereas traditional reports tend to be copywritten up quite similarly, free from overt opinion and spread in a relatively calm manner, blog pieces don’t adhere to as many rules and get reinterpreted and recycled, like some 21st century Chinese whispers.

The Steve Jobs example strikes again.    

Fortunately, most websurfers still rely on dedicated news sites for concrete info, and episodes like the Steve Jobs incident are usually flagged up as balderdash before they go too far.

But Robert Peston is further blurring the line.

His use of blogging to break big and generally accurate stories lends excessive credibility to blogs in general: that is the danger. It would be wrong to suggest all blogs are inaccurate trash, but by and large blogs equate to one person, no editor, no checks, no balances, and so it follows that they will be less accurate than professional news.

Sure, it’s not much of a threat to people like us who are being taught about these things, but what about those citizens who are only just discovering the blogosphere and web 2.0 in general?

Someone could go on the internet for the first time today, search for financial news, immediately find the blog of the credit crunch poster boy, and be under the rational impression from then on that blogs are trustworthy fountains of knowledge. 

Whether Peston’s is a case of a journalist getting carried away with the new angles of media or simply of a man desperate to be on the telly, the risks are the same. Peston is overstepping the mark by taking news and taking blogs and trying to turn one into the other.

Rather, he and the rest of us should be looking to use them in tandem: using a blog as supporting analysis to a news piece, having journos scour citizen blogs for leads and sources, etc. By making them mutually beneficial without distorting their fundamentals, there can be civil partnership between the two mediums.