There was an item on breakfast TV a few minutes ago about how lots of families are now trying to sue big technology and social media companies like Facebook for being ‘harmful’ and subjecting them to too many negative images etc. This isn’t my area of expertise of course, but as someone who has been using the web now for most of my life, I feel compelled to say something. The internet is a wonderful tool, but like any tool it is up to us what we use it for: We choose what we look for, read and watch on the web, just as we choose which books to read or which films to watch. Thus for these people to try to blame social media companies for exposing them to harmful content is utterly absurd. I have never come across anything as dark as they are describing, or anything encouraging me to commit suicide, despite the fact that I use the web, including sites like Facebook and Youtube, for hours each day.

I must add too that it irritates me how several of these people are attempting to blame social media for the fact they attempted to kill their selves. They seem to think these websites deliberately infected them with some kind of psychological virus or disease, from which they could not escape. Again this strikes me as absurd. The fact these melodramatic, attention-seeking kids may have made half-assed attempts to top themselves is not the responsibility of any social media website. Such sites are used by billions of people each day, uploading terabytes of information – how could any company control such a forum?

I must admit these people suing these companies irk me. They seem very eager to play the victim and blame others for how they have chosen to act. Life is extremely precious, and to try to end it is a stupid decision to make; but it is a decision which can’t be blamed on anyone else once someone realise how stupid they were to make it. At the end of the day, people intent on killing theirselves do so, and it’s an utter waste. Yet I strongly suspect those who ‘attempt’ suicide but fail merely do so to get attention and pity. Many then try to blame others for their stupidity, as is the case here. I seriously doubt they actually feel the kind of despair they claim, but are just caught up in the fashion for self-pitying, ‘goth’ teenagers who think the world, which somehow revolves around them, is about to end. Having grown up alongside kids who had to overcome horrific physical challenges yet who never complained about their situations, to see these perfectly fine, able-bodied young people claim such victimhood, simply for being exposed to websites they chose to go to, is perverse.

The bigger problem, however, is the implications these court cases might have for social media companies, if they succeed. Part of what makes the internet so great is that you can find absolutely anything on it: here on my blog, on Facebook or Youtube, I can post whatever I want. Some of it might come under criticism from my fellow internet users, but that’s natural in any public forum. The moment sites like Facebook start to have to regulate what is posted onto it, things change: it would become far less free and open; we would all have to be extra cautious about what we post on it. I might even have to watch what I say here. The liberal, tolerant exchange of ideas on the web will be lost, simply because some lachrymose, melodramatic kids want to blame big tech firms for the things they chose to look at.