SOMEONE once told me that the perfect way to deal with a flasher is to point and laugh at them. Apparently this is the kind of thing that really winds them up. If their objective is to cause fear, alarm, shock and humiliation, laughter rather spoils the plan.

It got me thinking recently, when I switched on my TV and saw the familiar face of Monica Lewinsky on ITV’s This Morning, discussing her ideas on dealing with online trolling and abuse. If the aim of the trolls is to disrupt conversation and inject negativity into every corner of the internet, then perhaps a form of social media love-bombing is one way we can all scupper them.

I was about 12 when the Bill Clinton and Lewinsky affair scandal of 1998 hit the headlines. Clinton told a fib so infamous that it still fills comedy punchlines today. His insistence that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” turned out to be the fake news of its day, but it wasn’t enough to end Clinton’s presidency, and he’s still considered a well-respected enough political voice whenever he chooses to use it.

The same couldn’t be said for Lewinsky, however. She has since spoken about the profound effect the episode had on her life, and talked of being close to attempting suicide. In the global media scrum, Lewinsky, like so many other women caught up in any scandal, emerged as the dark temptress of the saga; the troublesome young female so hungry for power and fame that she’d risk breaking up a marriage to get it.

Being a young woman in the lower ranks of a very powerful environment didn’t seem to factor too much in the story. In the oldest of clichés, Clinton was the vulnerable, seduced man.

Subsequently, Lewinsky’s career was ruined, and I’m delighted that she’s now using the continuing public curiosity in her to raise awareness of how damaging the behaviour of strangers can be, and to campaign against bullying. We can only imagine how much more hell she may have gone through had social media existed in 1998.

We need more voices like Lewinsky’s. Social media is so binary that it often feels as though everyone is trying to be in one of two camps: we’re either troll-like, where we’re negative and nasty towards others; or we’re purists, the very best version of humans we can be, concerned only with beating whoever we think the bad guys are.

The problem is, I’ve been in both of those camps simultaneously and been completely oblivious to it. As a woman concerned with protecting minorities and standing up for the vulnerable, I’ve often mocked and insulted generally decent people because they’ve deviated from my idea of the correct path. While being convinced I’m upholding good values, I’ve often fallen far short of them. Social media brings out the troll in all of us at some point, no matter what bigger purpose we think we’re serving.

Lewinsky’s proposal is for everyone to make a conscious effort to spread kindness and support. Whether it’s a message, an emoji or a hashtag, sometimes it means a lot to show someone who’s under social media siege that people care. In my experience, if someone hits back at me with a jibe as cutting as the one I offered, it entrenches me further in my mindset. I feel justified in indulging in a bitter argument because I’m fighting fire with fire.

But the one thing that stops it in its tracks is a genuine expression of hurt or disappointment from someone. When people stop playing the social media game and reintroduce their compassion and empathy to proceedings, it’s possible to change minds and actions.

Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a social media problem so big now that it’s hard to see how we can kill it with kindness, but it has to start somewhere. We have a duty, particularly to younger people struggling with cyber bullying and intense online peer pressure, to behave ourselves. Social media is stressful not just because of how others behave towards us, but sometimes because we know, deep down, that it draws that behaviour out of us, too, and we don’t like ourselves when we do it.

So I’m making a conscious effort to stand shoulder to shoulder with the embattled woman whose story I watched with fascination on television as a child. As they say, be the change you wish to see.