Social networking creates a parallel society that operates with almost impunity. Normal circumstances regarding presumption of innocence are disregarded, and in the case of an incident concerning a lass from Salobreña, online lynching.

“Here we are like a revolutionary tribunal. If normal justice doesn’t act because laws prevent it (unfortunately), we will judge the accused ourselves. If you don’t like it, you can lump it.”

These were the chilling words that appeared on facebook, concerning the hounding of a girl whom some considered to be “The girl with the high heels.” Let me explain.

On the 23rd of January, three lads from Almería got the crap kicked out off them outside a Granada discotheque. CCTV footage was shown on TV of how a girl that was accompanying the aggressors took off one of her high-heel shoes and began to beat one of the lads on the head with the heel, as he lay, semiconscious on the ground.

The incident buzzed through the social networking sites and before long, somebody commented on facebook that he knew the identity of the girl – she lived in Salobreña. Before long the girl was receiving death threats via email and dared not even go out for fear of being attacked.

She was completely innocent – mistaken identity police investigation showed – not even close, but the damage was done and the Internet Wild West came very close to stringing up a completely innocent individual. The facebook page, which had been set up to identify the assailant has since been removed from the Net.