THE online bullying and smearing of Maíria Cahill highlights the strikingly unusual phenomenon of the 'Shinnerbots' - the apparently ubiquitous Sinn Féin supporters who will type anything into the internet, however disgusting or obviously untrue, to defend their party and its glorious leader.
There are plenty of horrible unionists online, of course, as exposed by the flag protests and satirical sites like Loyalists Against Democracy. However, 'Orangebots' tend to attack rather than back unionist parties and leaders. The financial and marital scandals that engulfed Peter Robinson in 2010 provoked no noticeable cyber-defence of the first minister. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In Scotland, the psychology of a frustrated nationalism spawned the socalled 'cybernats', who dripped a great deal of poison into the independence debate. But even they showed qualified support for the SNP and Alex Salmond, at least by Shinnerbot standards, despite some evidence of SNP coordination.
Comparisons have been made between Sinn Féin's handling of the Cahill case and the Catholic Church's approach to sexual abuse, while neurologists claim national identity and religious belief are stored in the same stubborn part of the brain. Yet once again there was no Shinnerbot-style fervour in defence of the Church or its hierarchy, with the revealing exception of some pro-Sinn Féin commentators, who demanded ethnic solidarity in case unionists were enjoying Catholicism's troubles.
So the Shinnerbots seem to represent a particularly Irish blend of politics, party and identity, combined with a special devotion to president-for-life Adams. They also seem to epitomise the Sinn Féin base, certainly to the media and rival politicians, who have advised reading anti-Cahill blogs and tweets to see what Sinn Féin supporters are 'really like'.
Unfortunately for the media and Sinn Féin, things on the internet may not be what they seem. The most important mistake journalists still make about social media is not realising that the technology groups people of similar interests together, creating unreliable impressions of numbers and consensus. During the flag protests, several counter-demonstrations were organised online and much-hyped by the media, only for a few hundred of the usual placard-waving suspects to turn up. Reporters who thought they were observing a mass movement had merely been watching the Twitter timelines and Facebook postings of people that software had judged to be of a like mind, location, background and so on, both to each other and to Belfast's reporters.
Conversely, amateur YouTube videos of loyalist marching bands or republican rebel bands are routinely watched hundreds of thousands of times within months - figures most serious political websites in Northern Ireland can only dream of. Yet these videos rarely pop up automatically on journalist's screens because algorithms have decided the former will not interest the latter.
To what extent has social media locked the media and the Shinnerbots in a room together? How numerous and representative are that room's occupants? My suspicion is that journalists now spend an inordinate amount of time listening to a tiny handful of obsessives who offer a poor insight into Sinn Féin's 400,000 voters. The Shinnerbots may be more representative of party activists and some of the smearing of Cahill seems to prove it. However, I simply do not know and neither does anyone else, with the probable exception of the intelligence services at Cheltenham, who will not be telling.
The internet is increasingly how this society speaks to itself so it would be useful to know who is speaking and for whom they speak, even in the most general terms. It is a pity that the well-resourced discipline of media studies is still debating ancient Marxist critiques of press ownership instead of analysing social media usage and influence. Perhaps the whole point of subjects like media studies is that they do not demand that level of technical ability. Like everyone else, journalists are gradually learning to filter the online noise that is the future of public discourse, whatever bizarre and oppressive laws may be attempted to control it. However, this is happening amid a lack of hard data and in an atmosphere of casual nastiness that leads to misjudgement, over-reaction and even tragedy, as in this month's suicide of an exposed 'troll' in England.
The natural limit to obnoxious internet armies is that they do their cause no favours. 'Shinnerbot' was a term coined during Martin McGuinness's 2011 Irish presidential campaign, reflecting widespread contempt for how his supporters behaved online. If Cahill's tormentors are not reflective of Sinn Féin, it is in the party's interests to make that clear.