Questions around use of social media floating on online cloud

We have blindly embraced social media without fully knowing how to handle it and the outing of Barry Walsh’s online behaviour has proven that, writes Elaine Loughlin.

As one commentator put it, the new world of social media has become a big toilet wall in which people can write all sorts of abuse.

But such networks are not like slurs on slabs of concrete in a cubicle frequented by a handful of people before the offending comments are painted over, they act as a permanent record of statements and abuse which can be searched and retrieved at any date in the future.