NEVER mind Alex Salmond or Jeremy Corbyn on the Fringe, the toastiest ticket in town of late has been the Aberdeen Asset Management Leadership Forum, an event held ahead of the Ladies Scottish Open, which starts today.

The official aim of the get-together was to encourage the empowerment of women in business, politics, and sport, which sounds rather dull. The Kick Up the Patriarchy Forum, or the Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Any More Afternoon Tea, might have been peppier. No matter. This event, in its own quiet way, was a dear diary moment. Major sponsorship of a women’s sporting tournament arm-in-arm with a push for equality. Speaking out regarded as so mainstream, so expected, so much of A Good Thing that it is attracting corporate sponsorship. Wow.

Broadcaster Sarah Smith and Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson did not disappoint in their headline-grabbing contributions. Ms Smith criticised her BBC employers over the gender pay gap, while Ms Davidson’s target was Twitter bullies who attacked her for being gay.

Ms Davidson is not the first woman in public life to speak out about social media abuse. Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and others, across all parties, have been equally vociferous about its corrosive effects. There is certainly a lot of it to get upset about. Online abuse, of women especially, has become the digital equivalent of dog mess, out there in full view, forcing us to step around it, disgusted.

Yet what if there was another option, not just to walk on by but to cross to the other side of the street where there are far more important battles to fight than taking on sad sacks online? Close the Twitter account. Tell Facebook you are no longer interested in doing business with it. Just say no. In an abusive relationship the only way forward is walking out the door. No ifs, no buts, no 22nd chances, no trying to understand the abuser’s point of view, just leave. Why don’t we?

It is easy to walk away, and some of us have. Alongside women politicians, perhaps the next most pilloried group online are women journalists. Get a group of us together and oh, the stories we can tell. There is the stuff that is so pathetic it is laughable (and yes, some of it comes from other women). Comments about our appearance, our intelligence, our credentials to write about any given subject. Politics tends to light the blue touchpaper. Economics is worse. Being patronised is a given.

Then there are the more serious posts. The ones that threaten violence. The ones with language and imagery so vile it turns the stomach. At this point in the discussion the laughter tends to stop. Faces cloud over with the memory of those sleepless nights when reason told you that of course the troll did not know where you lived, but then reason also told you that they knew where you worked.

I am proud to say that at The Herald we were ahead of the game when it came to tackling online abuse. That was thanks to digital editor Calum Macdonald, who brought in a take no c**p policy. Lover of language that he was, Calum, who died earlier this year, would not have named the approach so bluntly, but that is what it was essentially. It sprang from the belief that journalism, like democracy, like most things in a civilised society, was a two-way street. If fairness and decency were to be expected in our journalism, then the same went for commentary on that journalism. No system is perfect, comments still slip through, but Calum was right then and right now. Zero tolerance should mean just that.

The trouble is, the internet offers a myriad of platforms on which to abuse others. Like rats laying siege to a neglected home, the abusers can slip through so many holes. Board up the kitchen and they’ll come up through the toilet. Ignore one site and they will pop up on another. It is like a game of whack-a-mole, or in this case whack-a-troll.

That is one reason why personally pulling the plug on social media will not work. There is no dialling back on the internet. What a dull world it would be without it. There is another reason, maybe the best of all, to stay. To do otherwise would be to let the abusers think they had won.

More worryingly, we would also be fooling ourselves about the extent of the problem. Ms Davidson said something revealing on this in her forum comments. Outlining why every now and again she called the abusers out, the MSP said some of the worst comments came from men who “still live in their mothers’ basements and are sitting at a keyboard with [their] pants on”.

On that I would take issue with her. Maybe 15 years ago that was the case. Now the image is a cliche that bears little resemblance to what is an uncomfortable truth. Given the level of abuse online, this is an activity that is no longer the preserve of a few freaks, but something that has gone mainstream, something that will not be tackled by tweeting the odd zinger back at an abuser.

There is legislation available to deal with online abusers, even if much of it was framed in pre-social media days. They can be prosecuted, and the more that happens the more the message gets through that their criminal actions have serious consequences. Remember, too, that what occurs online is a mirror of what happens offline. If we accept that it is okay to be treated badly in one area of life, then the door stays open to other abuses.

Perhaps in time, online abuse will be another embarrassment from the past, the kind of thing that used to happen before society wised up and had a word with itself. I was reminded of such behaviour while watching one of the many documentaries made to mark 20 years since the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales. To see her being hunted by the paparazzi was to watch bullies at work, their delight in her obvious distress only too clear. What are the trolls of today but the sleazy paps of yesteryear?

It has to stop. The message to trolls should be clear. You are not coming for us any more, we are coming for you.