A couple of days ago, gymnast Beth Tweddle was on the receiving end of pretty disgusting abuse because she was doing a live Q&A.

Similarly, Jenny Green, after a brief and ridiculously innocuous blog on the Telegraph about being the lone Green in the Lords received a crazy amount of abuse. Telegraph blogs editor Damian Thompson – no shrinking violet – actually commented himself and called some of the posts "foul".

And then, of course, there's Mary Beard, who has also received absolutely vile abuse – not least for not being a 20-year-old blonde with plastic tîts.

Then there was the abuse of Tom Daley – before he came out.

Between all these – plus the case of Stan Collymore – it would suggest that neither class nor race nor sex nor sexuality are the sole issues. Torygraph readers and posters are not, generally speaking, lumpen proles. Daley was not known to be gay. Collymore is not female ... and so on.

So what is going on?

• Are such attitudes and behaviour new or does technology merely bring them to the fore?

• If it's new, what has given rise to it?

I think that, where threats are made, it's right for the police to act.

But I do worry about other forms of abuse being punished by the law.

To clarify: I've had abuse online (on Twitter) and in the street (well before the likes of Twitter had been dreamed up).

I've never reported anyone and cannot imagine a situation where I would. I've usually given some back, laughed at them or, in a particular instance on Twitter, simply blocked a bunch of abusive twoks (who were a mix of male and female). Although it's also true that, when I was less confidant, there were incidents that were really hurtful – came out of the blue, on the street, from total strangers who apparently believed they could take a look at me and abuse me to my face.

In some ways, they're risable. In my personal experience of abuse on Twitter, they rooted through the pictures I'd posted and decided that, on that basis, they knew my sexuality and relationship status – I was a lezza and clearly living on my own and had never had a relationship and so forth. They're actually that dumb. It's almost funny.

One of the problems, IMO, is that by making an issue of some of the abuse (as opposed to direct and specific threats – see above) is there a risk that we create a culture of victimhood, which then creates more victims?

Are these a new – and more easily done – form of the poison pen letter? What would have been the punishment for sending those?

There are a number if things that should concern people, but cause should be the main one, within an historic context of abusive behaviour (if we can work one out).

Maybe it's linked to a general disillusion with politicians of all flavours and a sense, inspired or given credibility by nasty mainstream media, that helps it to, apparently, blossom.

After all, a day or so ago, the Sun's front page headline was berating Collymore as a hypocrite because he has been a domestic abuser in the past.

Yet the same paper (and it is not alone) promotes attitudes of hatred and resentment. It feeds off and profits from social and economic inequality. It itself bullies and harasses people, and promotes by stealth a view of those that succeed in various walks of life as being fair game.

One trouble, though, is that if 'abusive' messages start being prosecuted, it becomes entirely subjective – and who gets to decide on that?

Are we ultimately just lumbered with a society in which a substantial number of people a dumb little fücks – or are there larger issues at play? And in either case, how do we sensibly deal that – if we should?

A couple of days ago, gymnast Beth Tweddle was on the receiving end of pretty disgusting abuse because she was doing a live Q&A.

Similarly, Jenny Green, after a brief and ridiculously innocuous blog on the Telegraph about being the lone Green in the Lords received a crazy amount of abuse. Telegraph blogs editor Damian Thompson – no shrinking violet – actually commented himself and called some of the posts "foul".

And then, of course, there's Mary Beard, who has also received absolutely vile abuse – not least for not being a 20-year-old blonde with plastic tîts.

Then there was the abuse of Tom Daley – before he came out.

Between all these – plus the case of Stan Collymore – it would suggest that neither class nor race nor sex nor sexuality are the sole issues. Torygraph readers and posters are not, generally speaking, lumpen proles. Daley was not known to be gay. Collymore is not female ... and so on.

So what is going on?

• Are such attitudes and behaviour new or does technology merely bring them to the fore?

• If it's new, what has given rise to it?

I think that, where threats are made, it's right for the police to act.

But I do worry about other forms of abuse being punished by the law.

To clarify: I've had abuse online (on Twitter) and in the street (well before the likes of Twitter had been dreamed up).

I've never reported anyone and cannot imagine a situation where I would. I've usually given some back, laughed at them or, in a particular instance on Twitter, simply blocked a bunch of abusive twoks (who were a mix of male and female). Although it's also true that, when I was less confidant, there were incidents that were really hurtful – came out of the blue, on the street, from total strangers who apparently believed they could take a look at me and abuse me to my face.

In some ways, they're risable. In my personal experience of abuse on Twitter, they rooted through the pictures I'd posted and decided that, on that basis, they knew my sexuality and relationship status – I was a lezza and clearly living on my own and had never had a relationship and so forth. They're actually that dumb. It's almost funny.

One of the problems, IMO, is that by making an issue of some of the abuse (as opposed to direct and specific threats – see above) is there a risk that we create a culture of victimhood, which then creates more victims?

Are these a new – and more easily done – form of the poison pen letter? What would have been the punishment for sending those?

There are a number if things that should concern people, but cause should be the main one, within an historic context of abusive behaviour (if we can work one out).

Maybe it's linked to a general disillusion with politicians of all flavours and a sense, inspired or given credibility by nasty mainstream media, that helps it to, apparently, blossom.

After all, a day or so ago, the Sun's front page headline was berating Collymore as a hypocrite because he has been a domestic abuser in the past.

Yet the same paper (and it is not alone) promotes attitudes of hatred and resentment. It feeds off and profits from social and economic inequality. It itself bullies and harasses people, and promotes by stealth a view of those that succeed in various walks of life as being fair game.

One trouble, though, is that if 'abusive' messages start being prosecuted, it becomes entirely subjective – and who gets to decide on that?

Are we ultimately just lumbered with a society in which a substantial number of people a dumb little fücks – or are there larger issues at play? And in either case, how do we sensibly deal that – if we should?