The issue of impersonation of MHKs, highlighted by the Isle of Man Examiner this week , is a phenomenon that’s no doubt going to get worse.

Anyone with any email address can say he or she is, for example, Alfred Cannan on any number of platforms – social media or news forums – and start spouting anything he or she wants.

There’s no doubt that some people will be gullible enough to fall for it and believe that those are the words and beliefs of Mr Cannan.

He will be damaged. Democracy will be damaged.

As artificial intelligence gets more and more sophisticated, it won’t just be words on a screen that we’ll have to be wary of.

Voices can be manipulated and so can moving images. It will become virtually impossible to differentiate between reality and fantasy.

We could see and hear Mr Cannan apparently disputing the moon landings or admitting to all sorts of heinous crimes.

The internet is the incubator of fake news.

Indeed, it tickles the tummies of those who scoff about ‘mainstream media’ because they can point to any number of sites that ‘prove’ their theories about everything from climate change denial to Q Anon.

The ‘mainstream media’ – in spite of all that pesky regulation and fact-checking – is always hiding the truth because of some grandiose global conspiracy.

As an example, when an email apparently from the leader of Douglas Council pinged into our inbox, we checked it had come from her.

It hadn’t. It was a hoax. No story was written.

We’re not perfect.

But please take a bigger pinch of salt when you read things online than you do with newspapers.