The Spectator Podcast: The digital inquisition

On this week’s episode, we examine Twitter’s mob mentality, get to the heart of PTSD, and look at how Russia is preparing for this year’s World Cup.

First up: At the end of 2017 it would’ve be hard to guess that the name of everyone’s lips during the sunrise days of the new year would be Toby Young. But thanks to a government appointment and a series of ill-advised tweets, his brief stint at the Office for Students has dominated the news cycle. In the magazine this week, Lara Prendergast writes about how our digital footprints could come back to bite us, whilst Rod Liddle laments the rise of trial by twitter. To debate the issue, we were joined by spiked editor Brendan O’Neill and the Guardian’s Dawn Foster. As Lara writes:

“I need not repeat the litany of Toby’s offending tweets. He said some bad things. He has been deliberately provocative.