EVERY now and then we need reminding just how dangerous the latest technology and in particular the wonderful world of the web can be.

We are now so used to sending a quick email, popping on to Facebook to catch up on friends and relatives or texting an immediate message that we don’t consider the down side of these vastly convenient and swift modern channels of communication.

Yet, so personal and remote is much of it that people’s stop button to prevent us crossing the bad taste and cruelty line is often totally switched off.

In other words, they say exactly what they think and believe they’re not accountable for the results.

Bad-mouthing colleagues or other individuals this way has already proved a dangerous habit, but there is now a really nasty insurgence of online “trolls”

who send horrible messages designed to hurt and upset.

Teenage Down’s Syndrome sufferer Heidi Crowter had pictures of her on a support website hijacked to mocking Facebook pages. And, even worse, sick comments were posted on the memorial site of a 17-year-old girl who died of leukaemia in February.

It’s not the first time that trolls have targeted websites of young people who have died, totally uncaring about the effect on family and friends by their actions.

Sending abusive messages is an offence under the Malicious Communications Act 1988, yet people somehow feel they have the right to say exactly what they like from the comfort of their keyboard. One man received a prison sentence for posting malicious messages last year.

It may be that for people who have had things go badly in their own lives, unpleasantly attacking vulnerable families makes them feel better.

But I really think the main problem is that typing messages in the isolation of our homes and private lives often fails to allow any real connection with other people and their feelings.

Trolls were originally supernatural beings in Norse mythology or other evil magical types who sometimes came to a bad end when good prevailed.

It’s up to us to banish the trolls in society, via prison or simply shaming them publicly, and to try to get everyone to take a more responsible, realistic approach to what they post. It’s part of the new moral code of communication that we need to adopt as soon as possible to retain the positive side of technology—and get rid of the bad.