CANBERRA mother of four Melinda Tankard Reist lists in today's newspaper a sickening series of threats she has received because she is an online opinion writer with strong views.
The fact that she is a woman with forthright opinions sadly appears to be one of the major reasons she has sustained such vile abuse.
The threats she has received have frighteningly gravitated toward the sexual.
In the past week she has received plenty of media coverage because of a defamation action she brought against another writer.
The piece she has written for the Sunday Canberra Times today is unrelated to this legal action.
Instead, the piece in today's paper outlines a number of anonymous threats - threats to do terrible things to an innocent citizen.
The Australian Government is at the moment running a wide-ranging inquiry into the media.
One of the questions it will no doubt be faced with when all evidence has been gathered is how to regulate - if at all - comments online. This becomes even more difficult when these faceless people provide no name and no address.
Why would they? They are committing despicable acts and doing so under the cowardly cover of anonymity.
What protections will online writers have in the future to guard them against these anonymous troublemakers?
Will they forever be hounded by these people?
The threats these anonymous people make must surely cause serious concern in the households of the people who receive these threats.
It is no good to brush off the threats as probably being made by some crackpot thousands of kilometres away in another country.
It is simply not good enough to assume there will always be internet users who will threaten others.
Time and again the internet proves to be a technology with great benefits for humankind, but this must be balanced against the complex new challenges it creates for governments and law enforcement bodies.
And as the Gillard Government sinks tens of billions of dollars into the national broadband network to connect more Australians to the internet at faster speeds, it must also remember the responsibility that comes with this.
If there is one step forward the media inquiry can make, it is how to better protect all Australians who use the internet.
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