More comments from Transition Year students who have won a week's work placement in The Irish Times. To join them, send us a 200-word piece on a media-related topic.

Tim McClave, De La Salle Churchtown, Dublin

The Internet's offer of complete freedom of information is very dangerous, and many see this as a flaw in the net. The real flaw, however, is in us and the way we treat each other.

There was recently a lot of publicity given to a story about a website making libellous accusations about Irish politicians. No doubt superficial damage was done to a few people's careers, but why did this happen? Because "mud sticks", this means that people are all to willing to judge others based on one side of a story, or incomplete facts.

The Internet's problems cannot be solved, like most governments seem to believe, by pieces of misguided, draconian legislation. The solution lies with its users, which will very soon include the majority of those living in the developed world.

Eadaoin O'Sullivan, St Leo's College, Carlow

Why do so many people insist on adopting such an incredibly snobbish attitude to television?

To dismiss television as unimportant or say it rots your brain is ridiculous. If someone does not possess a TV set, they are clapped on the back. In my opinion, they should be pilloried!

If someone declared, "Oh, I don't read the newspaper any more, it rots your brain," the intelligentsia would snigger delicately and derisively into their port. Why, then, is TV "evil"? Could it, perhaps, be snobbery? Television is a medium of the masses - everyone is equal in the eyes of the box. People cannot be stratigraphied in the same way as, say, Irish Times readers and National Enquirer readers.

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