Raoul Moat - are you a fan?

Last weekend, being an inquisitively morbid sort of chap, I stayed up until after 2 in the morning to watch the finale to the Raoul Moat reality TV series - although admittedly there wasn’t much to see in the final hours as it was just a depressingly hazy night vision luminescent green, dismally lashing with rain, with just the bizarre side plot of Gazza turning up on the night with beer, chicken and a fishing rod in order to offer his support as light relief.  It was even more miserable and tragic than one of Eastenders bleakest storylines; then Moat shot himself, was carried off in an ambulance and I went to bed.

Anyway Moat died; he’d murdered one man, blinded another and his ex-partner is still in hospital having been shot by him.   To most he was a bad lad, and it was good riddance, yet in the aftermath of his death a shrine has been set up outside his home and the field in Rothbury where he met his end is knee deep in floral tributes.  

Stranger still, two Facebook sites have been set up in Moat’s memory.  This has outraged many, yet thus far over 50,000 people have signed up to offer their support and condolences for an apparently misunderstood and mentally ill hero who was hounded to his death.

Prime Minister David Cameron certainly isn’t a fan, and the Government requested Facebook take down the pages.  Facebook refused this request, with an official line indicating that they stand for free speech, with public debate being a positive thing even if the content is sometimes contentious.

Nevertheless, earlier today one site creator, Siobhan O'Dowd removed the RIP Raoul Moat You Legend Facebook group - which at the time boasted more than 30,000 followers - after Cameron’s criticism, although she has apparently indicated that it may be reinstated at some point in the future, while another site still remains.

Meanwhile former Sun Editor Kelvin Mackenzie was morally outraged at the situation on this evening’s This Week (although anyone old enough to remember The Sun’s sickening coverage of The Hillsborough football disaster, or the Gotcha headline accompanying the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands conflict, while he was at the helm probably needs to take little notice of his opinion).  

Thanks to modern technology however things have moved on somewhat from the late 80s and early 90s when he was a red top editor, and when the person on the street only had the letters page of the tabloids in which to vent their spleen against the injustices of the day, and where if the opinion didn’t suit the editorial it wouldn’t see the light of day.

Nowadays it only takes a few minutes to sign up a Facebook page, a Myspace account, start Tweeting, join a discussion group or write a blog, and just about anyone and everyone can get involved in social media; and although the likes of the tabloids continue to sell papers on the back of this sad tale, anyone can air their viewpoint on the story online.

What do you think of this state of affairs?  Should our online free speech be curtailed if it is deemed distasteful to many?  Are the tabloids any better than the Facebook sites with their overzealous reporting of the story, and what do you think about the TV stations’  coverage of the denouement, let us know here.