There have been many news headlines and comment on the tragic death of TV personality and Love Island presenter Caroline Flack at the age of 40.
Whilst Caroline’s family and friends are having to try and come to terms with this, the spotlight has once again fallen on the role of the media in this with regard to the negative attention paid to her personal life.
Pressure group Hacked Off in a statement included the comment: ‘Trial by media can have dangerous and unforeseen consequences. The media must be careful to scrutinise justice, not administer it.’
However, the real damage has almost certainly been inflicted by the trolls on social media and Twitter in particular, towards a lady who was clearly vulnerable and in a fragile state of mind. With more than two million followers on the platform, Caroline had many loyal and enthusiastic supporters, but sadly the vitriolic detractors overshadowed this. Last year, the creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, said that the internet’s good was being ‘subverted’ by those spreading spite and hatred. So, what was invented for good, (and has largely been that) has also been hi-jacked by some and the malevolent dark web’ has also sprung up.
If any good is to come of Caroline’s death more needs to be done to make the internet a safer place to roam; and far more effective safety controls and monitoring need to be applied by the social media platforms themselves. Politicians need to bring far more pressure to bear on them and help facilitate a much safer environment in which to operate and post.
Whilst the likes of Twitter and Facebook have employed more people to monitor postings, as well as new algorithms, it really is a drop in the ocean in terms of making a real difference. Unfortunately, winning the war on the perpetrators of bile, hatred and harassment still appears to be a far-flung hope. Whilst more and more police time is being ‘swallowed-up’ investigating ‘on-line’ hate crimes and threats, the real solutions need to be provided by the platforms themselves. #cyberbullying
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