SARAH VINE

As the mother of two teenagers, I spend far more time with my head in the sewer that’s the internet than is strictly good for me. But I have no choice.

the web is the curse of all modern parents, and while you can hold off your child’s engagement with it for as long as possible, once they start secondary school you’re fighting a losing battle.

thus, I do my best to stay up-todate with the latest social media platforms and trends. Youtube, Instagram, snapchat — I suffer them all.

I am always struck by the general inanity, not to mention the casual cruelty and the overall Lord Of the Flies atmosphere that prevails.

But every time I think I’ve got a grip on all the many horrors I need to try to protect my children from, the internet spews up another.

the latest, reported in yesterday’s Mail, is called ‘baiting out’, in which Youtube ‘stars’ take to the streets armed with a video camera and persuade children and young people to say vile things about their peers.

Popular subjects include ‘ broke girls’ (those who don’t have a suitably up-to-date — and expensive — pair of trainers, for example), ‘skets’ or ‘hoes’ (basically girls of easy virtue) — and generally anyone who doesn’t come up to scratch in the harsh world of urban youth culture.

this being the internet, the crueller the comments the more ‘shares’ or ‘ likes’ they will receive. this is ultimately the whole point of the exercise, since in the twisted world of online economics, traffic equals money and some of these Youtube presenters are making lots of it.

SO FaMe-hungrY Youtubers ask seedy questions, challenging their victims to be ever more outrageous in their replies. expletive-ridden and delivered in staccato street patois, the base nature of the majority of the insults is truly shocking.

In one video I saw yesterday, a girl is compared to a plastic cup: ‘ People just use you and throw you away.’

In another, a boy of about 12 tells the camera he wants to ‘bait out rebecca’; his friend — who looks about eight — pipes up: ‘Oh rebecca, she gave me **** in the back of the car.’

In another, a girl starts off: ‘there’s this slag, yeah, she goes to my school, yeah, she’s such a f*** ing b****, yeah.’

Many of them betray the depressing stupidity of the people doing them. In one, a girl accuses some poor boy of being ‘ underrated’. her friend corrects her: ‘It’s overrated.’ ‘nah, underrated,’ retorts the other, before the pair get into a fight.

Of course, idiots, bigots and bullies have always existed in society. But never before have they found themselves having access to such a vast audience and enjoying such power and reach.

But the curse of the internet is that it amplifies everything, good and bad — but especially, it seems, the baser aspects of human behaviour.

In ‘baiting out’, we see yet another example of how the internet brings out the very worst in people. Because make no mistake, victims have had their lives all but ruined by these attacks.

even if the social media platforms take action — as Youtube did after being contacted by the Mail — and delete offensive and humiliating content, chances are it will already have been saved on someone’s computer, there in perpetuity, forever threatening to resurface.

today it’s ‘baiting out’; tomorrow it will be something else. the internet is ever shifting, impossible to pin down. until the powers-that-be acknowledge this — and take bold steps to ensure that all online platforms adhere to the rules of civilised publishing — nothing will change.

humanity will continue to hollow itself out, bite by bite, in tiny increments, until there is nothing of civilisation left.