The internet has become a very dark place

The internet is littered with sad creeps looking to make lives miserable.

Look at Facebook and Twitter. What started off as a fun way for people to keep in touch has led to all sorts of vile cretins slithering from under their stones to pour poison on the vulnerable.

Young children and teenagers in particular have found themselves victims. Then there are hideous blogs and websites actively promoting anorexia and self harming.

Heartbroken mother Sarah Wilson spoke out last week about the death of her talented and beautiful 15-year-old daughter Tallulah who threw herself in front of a train.

Sarah revealed that Tallulah was addicted to websites where users encouraged each other to self harm in a “toxic digital world”.

Tallulah was extremely vulnerable and although her shocked family tried to protect her after finding photos of her online with self inflicted wounds, they were unable to save her from herself. The problem is that the internet simply isn’t policed properly.

The technology is way ahead of the law and once the genie is out of the bottle it is almost impossible to bring in legislation. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. On a much less serious but still disturbing level, celebrities have also become targets of internet trolls.

Most of them can take care of themselves and some even use humour to deflect the bile. CNN host Piers Morgan famously corrects the spelling of the morons who tweet the most appalling insults about him.

But not everyone has a hide as thick as a rhino like Piers does. Ex-footballer Stan Collymore has suspended his Twitter account after hideous racist comments and death threats against him last week.

Now, Stan is no angel, but no one deserves that sort of disgusting abuse, and as he quite rightly pointed out if someone hurled those rants at him in the street they’d be arrested.

There was also a barrage of foul Twitter abuse against Olympic gymnast Beth Tweedle, which was deeply personal and offensive. Another Olympic champion, swimming star Rebecca Adlington, was reduced to tears by Twitter trolls.

Inevitably these sad creeps turn out to be the kind of people with no friends and no social life, who sit in their sad bedrooms spewing out insults, but they need to be named and shamed.

There’s also the unscrupulous types who use people in the public eye to make money promoting tawdry goods like “miracle” diets.

I fell victim to this last week when some dodgy bunch of chancers printed an ancient “before” photograph of my post pregnancy self from almost 20 years ago, claiming I had lost weight by using their product.

It is clearly nonsense. I always advocate that the only way to lose weight is to eat less junk and do a bit of exercise. It’s almost impossible to clamp down on this sort of intensely aggravating fraudulent behaviour.

It is, however, much more important to bring in some sort of self policing online to protect young people in particular from disgusting sites that can end in misery, despair and death.