The downside of the interactive web...

I am old enough to remember the hype around 'Web 2.0' some years ago when interaction started to creep into websites. The practice of leaving comments on articles and starting conversations crept into our lives and we ended up with the facebook generation that has bought us life lived out on a page...Social media suddenly took flight.
Now, I find Facebook a great way to keep in touch with far-flung friends, but I notice that other people tend to use it as a forum for discussion, which could be positive, but in my experience often results in insulting 'troll-like' behaviour. This is the downside of the interactive web, you give people a voice, and they will abuse it. This is why countries like the UK do NOT have 'free speech' as a right - it's because we understand that some people just shouldn't be allowed to voice their opinions as they don't have the social grace to understand how an inclusive society works. One of the worst offenders that I have seen is Yahoo where they allow users to comment on news - and they do just that. For example, I was just reading an article about recent lottery winners, comments were peppered with petty ill-disguised jealousy, some chose to roundly abuse the winners commenting on their appearance and suggesting that the male of the couple could now get himself a younger wife... No doubt, very funny if you are currently on school holidays and just graduating into long trousers, but of course each comment carries equal weight once it is posted. Added to this is then the opportunity to give a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down to each comment - this interactive feature is subject to the same inane activity. One poster remarked 'Fair play to them, I really hope they enjoy it..' within a short time, two people had give a thumbs-down to this pleasant even-handed comment suugesting that there are at least two people reading the comments who hope that the happy couple DON'T enjoy their win.
I would prefer to stay out of these stupid spats, but I'm afraid I did jump in with 'What idiot gives a thumbs down for that?' (I got a thumbs up, but expect worse to follow..).
My feeling is that I know exactly why people do that, it's because we have some incredibly small-minded people out there - the internet makes it worse because the idiots who are too scared to be rude to your face are really brave when you don't have a chance of finding out who they are. I assume that the 'trolls' mask their identities, and if you are going to take part in these discussions, then I recommend that you do the same. By calling them 'trolls' we are lumping them all together, but in reality we are talking about a range of people. Some are ignorant, biggoted people, some are just idiotic nasty kids - both of these look the same on the internet and can be spotted by bad spelling and grammar. Others are sociopaths who have no idea of how to behave or interact with others, some have deep-held but basically flawed beliefs (conspiracy theorists and the like) who just love to bang their drum. Many are probably an amalgamation of the above.
This is the price of Web 2.0, you can't really stop it but I would offer the following guidelines:

• Don't put stuff in your online profiles that might be traceable (email addresses, phone numbers etc..)
• Don't get too embroiled in an argument because it may turn out you are arguing a serious point with a couple of 11-year olds... be prepared to walk away from the discussion if things are going in an unsavoury direction.
• Mark down or report posts that go againt the TOS of the site concerned - blow the whistle on the trolls.
• Be caureful about linking your comments into other social medai sites (loads of places like Yahoo will do this if you are not careful) -