Benjamin Cohen:Lady Thatcher has been the first major British figure to have died in the age of Facebook and Twitter

Benjamin Cohen is Founding Publisher of PinkNews.co.uk, Broadcaster and journalist.  Follow Ben on Twitter.

We always seem to remember where we were and how we learnt about the death of an iconic figure. It is engraved in my memory that it was on a Sunday morning on a now defunct local TV news station, Channel One, where first I learnt of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. 

When I recount how I learnt of the death of Margaret Thatcher though, I will have to say that it was seeing a photograph of a bottle of champagne being popped open and reading the words "ding dong, the witch is dead". The poster, a television executive, helpfully linked to a YouTube clip from the Wizard of Oz, where I watched the Munchkins sing celebrating the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. It was only by reading the comments below the link that I realised that one of the most iconic leaders we have ever known had died.

Lady Thatcher has been the first major British figure to have died in the age of Facebook and Twitter. The first person whose death has become the immediate subject of debate, despair and celebration and a person whose death in my eyes has revealed a darker side to social networking.

While on the TV news or on news websites, we have seen glowing tributes Tweeted by politicians of all flavours, if my own social network is anything to go by, the majority of the content being posted is particularly negative if not offensive. Yes, many of my friends are upset that she brought us Section 28, an effective ban on homosexuality being discussed in schools, others are upset at the miner's strike, others the hunger strikes, the Falklands and a myriad of other issues. However most of what I have seen has been downright offensive. Bars have posted about 'dead Thatcher' parties, an off licence announced a special offer on champagne, George Galloway quoted from an Elvis Costello song about dancing on Thatcher's grave, students tweeted about applauding the news at NUS conference while a Facebook campaign has been mounted to take 'Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead' to number one this Sunday.

Social media is in a literal war, between those who have either admired Lady Thatcher or at least would rather show respect to a political opponent and those who are positively gleeful at the death of an individual. Sure, it is about the death of an extraordinarily divisive figure, loved and loathed in equal measure during her tenure as prime minister, but the negative posts are matched only perhaps by the death of Osama Bin-Laden. 

The posts have exemplified to me, someone who is a digital native not some sort of luddite, the rather instant, reactive and I believe rather crass culture that has been cultivated by the spread of social networking. A culture where people write things from the comfort of a keyboard that they never would say in public, where they click "like" at the death of someone they've never met or when they dispense with reasoned political arguments about an individual's legacy and in reality make themselves less human.