I’m a TV presenter who’s been pilloried on social media. I know the damage it can do

This is not a piece about Caroline Flack, partly because I never met her and I don’t watch Love Island, though I do know that she was a sister and a twin, and the idea of losing one of my sisters, or trying to explain their death to my children, chills my blood. I have immense sympathy for her friends, family and colleagues.

My reason for wading in is that I know a little about what it is like to be on television for a long time and to have done that during the dawn of social media, news websites and the sunset of TV. These are dangerous times. Television as we know it is dying, and it is dancing its last dance with its killer. Commissioners are as obsessed with clicks as they are in that other stricken industry, newspapers. “Noisy TV” is all the rage: it’s about the hashtag these days, a show is a success not if people watch it but if people chat about it online.

It means those who appear on TV are exposed to a level of comment and criticism that wasn’t there 20 years ago when I first found myself on screen. The first time I appeared on Question Time I went home happily oblivious to what anyone beyond my friends and family thought about my appearance. Now you know your comments will spin around the internet, examined and re-examined. One slip-up could be career ending – no wonder I don’t go on any more. The last time I was shaking so violently it was visible to viewers.

The BBC has driven the social media scrutiny of this show, promoting the hashtag and Twitter handle; it wants and feels it needs this input from viewers but at what cost? This isn’t a BBC problem, it is universal. It is part of my job to promote my own Channel 4 shows on social media. Because people now watch TV according to their own timetable you have to keep the chat up; the consolidated figures matter as much as the overnights. But this means that our contributors, my house hunters or redecorators are commented on, often harshly, and we have to make sure we advise them to avoid social media the night the show goes out.

Channel 4 itself has a hugely successful show based on criticism of those on TV. Gogglebox, which has made millions for its producers, is all about watching others be critical. The first time I saw it, by horrible coincidence, they were “reviewing” my Christmas show. Watching people tear apart the fun, cosy Christmassy craft show that we put so much love into was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

But, I hear you ask, when is she going to mention the money? Presenters are paid handsomely: there are reports that Caroline Flack was paid £1.2m for Love Island, so surely we can take all this in our stride? That is true, to an extent. A tough hide is needed, and everyone must find a way to deal with the comments. It is essential never to search for your name, not to have an alert for newspaper articles about yourself and to treat social media a bit like a gremlin: never expose it to alcohol and never feed it after midnight, however much it begs. But what happens when something goes wrong?

This is where we have to change policy within our industry. There needs to be a recognised protocol when people are in crisis. In 2018, I mentioned in a discussion on children and gaming on the Jeremy Vine show that I had “smashed” my kids’ iPads. The producers tweeted this comment with glee, recognising the newsworthy element that hadn’t occurred to me, and my comments went far beyond those who had watched the show. Within hours my Twitter account exploded with enraged gamers and furious mothers (though many admitted to a grudging respect that I had followed through on something they had often threatened). Newspapers as far away as Australia covered the story, and by that evening I realised that the only way to deal with this was to let it play out far from my sight.

I deleted my Twitter account and for many weeks I stayed away from social media, and I don’t read articles about myself anyway. I was lucky, I was in a good place, I hadn’t done anything that triggered the disrepute clause in my contract and I wasn’t facing suspension from work or worse. There is no comparison to what Caroline Flack experienced, but it offers me some insight into the best way to approach any period of increased scrutiny. It’s something that could be built upon and rolled out universally.

There should be an industry-wide acceptance that someone takes over your social media at a crisis point, and we should recognise that when people in the public eye are vulnerable they are in no position to be left alone with the internet. Real people do not come up to you in the street and say “you bitch, someone should take your kids into care”, but they do online. While exhorting others to be kind is no bad thing, I can’t see much change on the horizon as long as traditional media is locked in this death spiral with social media. We post to stay relevant, but what we post will get reported, it will keep the story alive. Humans are critical of other humans, especially those who live seemingly glamorous and privileged lives, and not much is going to change that. But a disparaging conversation that might once have taken place in the pub is now broadcast directly into the feed of the celebrity in question.

Related: ‘We’ve had enough’: Caroline Flack’s death turns spotlight on tabloids once again

So those who make money from celebrities need to recognise this conflict and put in place proper safeguards. The television bosses, the agents of stars and the CEOs of social media companies are not the ones whose faces are splashed on the front of newspapers, and they need to do more to protect those that make them, in many cases, far more money, for far longer, than the stars that glitter and fade. If the loss of a human life does not make us wake up to this, God knows what will.

• Kirstie Allsopp is a broadcaster and author

• In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org