ONE of the attractions of being a pioneer is the opportunity to reach a new frontier before “they” come in and impose rules and regulations, a place where you and your fellow pioneers can enjoy the freedom to set your own standards – until some idiots come along and spoil it all.

This new frontier can be a physical one, as the Wild West was said to be, or one of ideas or even one created by technology. It’s the latter that concerns us most today, as the internet has given even the most unlikely of us the chance to be pioneers by pushing back the boundaries of communication on the web. Trouble is, some people have been pushing the wrong boundaries.

The actual pioneers of the web are said to have had a thoroughly idealistic view of what it could achieve, so they worked for free access and envisaged a great expansion in free speech, for positive ends.

Many would argue this has indeed followed, though whether you see some of the developments as triumphs or disasters may depend on your point of view. Many governments are not too happy about WikiLeaks, and I suspect Ryan Giggs might have mixed feelings about twitter.

Some other uses of the internet create very mixed feelings indeed. Social networks and internet forums have given people remarkable opportunities to express themselves publicly which simply didn’t exist before.

The “old media” has always had to be very careful what it publishes or broadcasts because of the danger of landing up in court for injuring someone’s reputation, upsetting a judge or even breaching state security.

But the internet has provided a dilemma for lawmakers, who have tended to avoid applying the same rules to web comment, particularly when it’s not edited. There’s the added complication that “offending” comments are often anonymous, which clearly emboldens some to go further than they perhaps would if there was a possibility that their targets would turn up at their front door.

But the High Court has now taken a hand in all this by ordering facebook to reveal the identities of people who launched what appears to have been an astonishingly abusive online campaign against a woman whose “crime” was to post a comment saying something nice about a former X Factor contestant.

This means the victim will be able to take a private prosecution against her tormentors for harassment – something I imagine lawyers will be anticipating with glee. A sad day for freedom of speech, then? Well, in principle yes – and perhaps in reality no.

Many who’ve viewed the world of web comment have recoiled from material to be found there, comments fairly dripping with poison, made by people who apparently think they have an absolute right to express themselves that way.

One person who may applaud our facebook victim is the broadcaster Fearne Cotton, who has come under online fire for her part on the BBC’s much-criticised Diamond Jubilee coverage. She turned the tables by using twitter to accuse some of her critics of “bullying” rather than expressing valid opinions.

As with so much of this, I have mixed feelings. Part of me thinks Ms Cotton is perhaps fortunate if this is her only experience of bullying. But on the other hand, having read one of the comments she responded to, I understand her anger.

The patronising tone, from someone who clearly hasn’t the remotest idea about her work smugly telling her what she’s done wrong, is sadly typical of the internet know-all. And that smugness seems to insulate such people from any inkling that they may be doing anything wrong themselves.

So yes, I fear there may be a new clampdown on communication, as lawyers more focused on fees than freedoms and possibly governments too use the online poison as an excuse to bring in all those rules and controls.

A sad day for the pioneers, but then you almost knew some idiots would come along and spoil it all.