THE opportunities offered by the internet and social networking sites to communicate immediately and internationally have potentially huge benefits for humanity.

It would, for instance, be difficult for most regimes today to conduct any kind of mass repression or genocide without the rest of the world at least knowing about it.

Whether the rest of the world can or, indeed, would then do anything about it may be a different matter, but it would be known.

Television too has helped to make war anathema to most of us.

Audiences worldwide could see the struggles of the freedom fighters in Libya and unpick some of the lies and propaganda peddled by Gaddafi’s supporters and, whilst the media can be hi-jacked by the despots, the stream of information on the internet soon exposes the worst excesses.

It is arguable that the two great wars that the previous generation lived through would have either been shorter or even less likely to start, had the kind of communication we have today been available.

However, all the benefits that humanity can reap from the free and instant exchange of information and communication are, as always, balanced by the opportunity afforded to the mindless, the cowardly and the evil alike to peddle hatred and hurt others at arms length.

The student who tweeted so disgustingly about Fabrice Muamba’s sad plight, as the young footballer was fighting for his life, would possibly never have dared utter his vile thoughts had he not had (what he considered to be) the anonymity of the internet between him and his audience.

But the internet is not a void. It is a world that is populated by people who we may never meet, but who have feelings and families and most of whom are reasonable and well intentioned. It is too easy for the coward and the bully to drive people to despair and even suicide by harrying them through social networking sites.

It is to the credit of the judicial system that the student who thought he could say whatever hurtful things he liked on Twitter about a stricken footballer (for reasons unfathomable by most of us) has been sent to jail for 56 days to think about what kind of person he is. Hopefully the lesson will not only serve to benefit his future behaviour but will serve as a warning to others that these sites can’t be treated like the walls of a public lavatory.