I love what the Internet has done, in terms of allowing us all access to information, more than we could ever read or imagine, but it does come with some drawbacks. I find that I am always troubled by the abuse that many people choose to give under anonymous user names or false names, and these people, whom I would refer to as trolls, running all over the Internet, looking for horrible things to say about different people, really have flourished on the Internet.

It is sad that the price we have to pay for so much extra freedom and information is to allow the vitriol and poison of some to now be so widely read. Anybody who writes a blog will find jealous people who have a few snide or nasty comments from time to time, but worse than that, is we have recently witnessed in America, some of the more poisonous attacks do seem to affect the warped minds and in particular with the result that, before you know it, politicians and all sorts of other people have been shot at shopping centres and very quickly politicians, and any of those who put up all the inflammatory comments in the first place, are quickly denouncing any actions based on what they said, and totting out the usual arguments about it’s a person who fires the gun that is the killer and those that write poison that influence such killers are not responsible.

I really wish there was some sort of way to try and ensure some sort of accountability, for those who publish and distribute hate speech and in addition, if it were possible, and I don’t see that it is, to try and eliminate the anonymous publishers. I guess you could raise political concerns against that argument also, bearing in mind that in many countries people do not have the freedom to say what they need to and in others, they clearly abuse that freedom by essentially inciting others to consider people as legitimate targets, simply because of their political stance.