DEVALUATION is one of the prices we pay for living in a world where everything is available at the click of a mouse or the push of a few buttons.

Once upon a time, people believed that words meant something. Their power was such that by saying the wrong thing to the wrong people or in the wrong place, you could be handed a death sentence. Religions have been based on less.

Through the rise of social media, we’ve seen the ease with which messages can spread around the world.

There’s rarely a week goes by without something popping up on your Facebook or Twitter timeline with a request for a share or a retweet, to help teach a class full of children learn how easily a message can spread around the world, but in recent weeks there’s been a darker twist to this type of plea.

It started out when a Twitter prankster sent a picture of infamous British serial murderers Fred and Rose West to American millionaire Donald Trump claiming they were his parents and big fans of the mogul, and asked if he’d retweet their picture to his 2.7million followers.

Of course, the curiously-coiffed tycoon probably didn’t have access to 20-year-old British news to hand, and it’s fair to imagine he thought he was doing a nice thing for a faraway fan by retweeting the image. So he did.

In minutes, his blunder had gone viral, and millions of people around the world were laughing at him, long after he had deleted the tweet and taken to Twitter to suggest he may sue the prankster.

Similarly, this week another humourist took advantage of one-hit wonder and father of a skimpily-dressed controversy magnet Billy Ray Cyrus’s lack of knowledge of British news events, and asked him to retweet a picture of Jimmy Savile, after claiming the much-loathed fundraising paedophile was his grandfather.

Yes, they got a laugh, but it shows a couple of flattering words can cause someone, even the most well-intentioned of people, to become a laughing stock in front of thousands of people.

Naturally, the press (and The Press), has to be responsible for its use of words too, carefully considering each word used in each story to ensure they are appropriate, fair, and respectful to people who may only ever appear in the public eye once in their lifetimes.

But there was a much more serious incident this week, when a woman accused of sending hundreds of obsessive tweets to the parents of missing Madeleine McCann was tracked down by Sky News and questioned on camera about her alleged acts.

She probably never imagined she would be the centre of rolling news, and words pretty much failed her once a camera was shoved in her face, but the story took a darker turn on Saturday when police found her dead in a hotel room. Whether her death is related to the allegations she had been bombarding social media with theories about the disappearance of Madeleine or not remains to be seen, but it’s difficult not to make a connection.

So it still amazes me when comments on social media over serious stories such as but not exclusive to sexual assaults, physical attacks and court stories are hijacked by sweary crusaders who seem determined to laugh at the misfortunes of others in the bluntest and most inappropriate ways possible, at the expense of taste, decency and compassion.

Sadly, these are a regular fixture on message boards across the internet, often citing freedom of speech as justification for their homophobic, xenophobic, and often downright racist outbursts, but to engage with them only leads to extending the argument and drawing more people into it.

It’s probably wishful thinking to suggest they don’t know the power of the language they are using, and I think it would be naive to imagine they hadn’t intended to shock and offend those who had shown genuine concern over what would be a horrific or life-changing incident for the sake of a brief feeling of superiority.

These anonymous keyboard warriors spew out their words as if they mean nothing other than a few moments of snarky fun to pass the time, but with the ease with which these words can be spread, it’s never been more important to remember just how much power words can have.

An anonymous blog posting or a shouted insult could end up becoming a matter of life or death, and while the way in which insults can be delivered has been devalued like standing ovations on a television talent contest, recent events prove the value of words should never be underestimated.