What’s your kindness IQ?

A few weeks ago, MailOnline carried a rather mundane story about some personnel changes at my charity, Sarah’s Trust, and another I support as patron, Humanitas. The piece reported quite fairly some of the work that we have been doing, including supplying hundreds of sleeping bags and essential supplies to homeless people. I rarely venture into readers’ comments, finding the online world rather frightening, but for some reason on this occasion I decided to scroll through what people were saying. I should have been put off by the warning that greeted me: ‘The comments below have not been moderated.’ Someone calling themselves Russell Nash, of the Highlands, had written simply: ‘Leech.’ Cannae2301, who described themselves as coming from ‘Londonistan’, declared: ‘Didn’t she represent WeightWatchers once? Looks like it didn’t work for her.’ Avast, supposedly of Futtocks End, resurrected and misspelled an old tabloid nickname of mine: ‘The Dutchess of Pork.’ Growly Sheep from Gotham insisted: ‘They draw huge salaries from the many “charities”’ (a completely false allegation).

The experience reinforced my impression that much of the internet is an unregulated Wild West. On social media in particular, people appear emboldened to come out with things that they would not dream of saying face-to-face. The online world may have revolutionised how we communicate but it has become a sewer. After 35 years in the public eye, I’ve learned to take it on the chin, but I worry about the effect of this online culture on my daughters, and more broadly, on all of our children. I find it appalling that people spend so much time and energy being so cruel to others. We need to teach our children that there is a dark side to the internet and very often people aren’t kind to each other there. It is too easy for people to post hatred and bile towards others with no consequences whatsoever.