The CCDH says this included pornographic images and threats of physical and sexual violence; the people who sent the DMs faced little or no consequences. The report appeared in that bastion of wokeness, The New York Times, and was promptly reproduced in the local woke counterpart, The Age.

Such findings are quite routine. There is a lot of money to be made from garnering statistics of this kind and then offering them up to the public with a disapproving comment or two attached.

You won't collapse and die if you do not have an Instagram account. Neither does one need to have an account on Facebook or Twitter to stay alive. But will such home truths ever be stated openly?

The prominent women whose DMs were looked at by the CCDH were actress Amber Heard, Jamie Klinger, an activist who co-founded the Reclaim These Streets group after the death of Sarah Everard in London last year, Rachel Riley, a TV show host in Britain, Bryony Gordon, a journalist and author, and Sharan Dhaliwal, founder of the South Asian culture magazine Burnt Roti.

Nobody in the ranks of the CCDH asked why these women had joined Instagram. Had they been compelled to do so, at the point of a gun? No, they all joined of their own free will, presumably to boost their popularity, to market whatever it is they are selling, and to have hordes of adoring people follow their every word [and sometimes act].

Did anyone from CCDH advise them that there is a downside to every one of these social media sites? Were they told that hate, vitriol, misogyny and harassment are all as much part of the online world as they are part of the real world? No, the chief executive of CCDH, Imran Ahmed, wrote that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, “created an environment where abuse and harmful content is allowed to thrive".

This is a stupid statement. Any activity online only reflects something that exists in the real world.

Image by iirliinnaa from Pixabay

Did Ahmed advise these five women to stay away from these sites, so that they would not suffer abuse? No, because if he did so and they listened to him, he would be out of business.

“The intended effect of the abuse and the trauma of its constant barrage is simple: to drive women off platforms, out of public life, and to further marginalise their voices,” Ahmed said. Another real dumb statement.

There are a load of simple facts that Ahmed — and others of his ilk — refuse to face. One, all these social media sites are in business for just one thing: to make money. [Same as Ahmed, only he takes home a decent pay cheque while working for a non-profit; it sounds nicer. Remember, there is a big difference between a non-profit and a charity.]

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok – you name it, they are all concerned with the bottom line. If they do react to Ahmed and others of his ilk who mouth such sanctimonious rantings, it is because they want to appear to be good corporate citizens.

They are not intent on driving people away; they know that numbers are what guarantee their profits. But they also know that mass movement of people is rare, unless someone comes up with a competing site. Given the scale at which they operate, such sites are unlikely to be built now. Humans beings are still very much creatures of habit.

If people do not like being called out, or dislike sarcasm or abuse directed at them, then they have an option: stay away from the likes of Instagram.

Don't join of your own free will and then complain that things are not going the way you wanted. There's one word for that: hypocrisy, and of a very high order too.