Files from the dead and information in-memoriam

Somehow a funny caption seems inappropriate.

An excellent article here at gizmodo.co.uk stopped me in my tracks today. The author tells of a job reading, reviewing, summarising and then destroying files within a social security department of a local authority. For 18 months the author waded through a vast room of literally thousands of files, the files of children who had died in the care of that local authority. The dead room as it was known. Anyone who has worked in legal RM or for any hospital records unit or for any local authority will have a taste of what this is like, though not the distilled horror of reading bland summaries of dreadful circumstances. The mere thought of this job gave me a palpable feeling of dread and a cold sweat.

Anti-social media. When social goes wrong and anonymous isn't

Get back under your fucking bridge.

In some parts of the internet there is a prevailing atmosphere of nasty. Have a look at the less salubrious areas of Facebook, twitter or in the comments section of any news organisation and you’ll get the measure of the beast. Highly misogynistic, racist, bulling, territorial, hate filled garbage. It’s unpleasant to stumble into accidentally, like something nasty you scrape off your shoe into the gutter on a hot summer day, it’s a lot scarier, threatening and horrible if directed at you, like the nastiness on your shoe is replaced with an industrial scale muck spreader on auto-feed.