This weekend saw a fascinating display of the influence of social networking, and how it harnessed its power to unify – and arguably lead – people to rally together against wrongdoing.

Events kicked off on Friday morning when the Daily Mail published an article by one of its columnists, Jan Moir, on the death of Boyzone’s Stephen Gately last weekend, in which she claims there was “nothing natural”  about the circumstances of the gay singer’s demise, and that Gately’s death struck a blow to the “happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.”

It seemed even the Daily Mail had gone too far this time, with the comments attracting overwhelming condemnation for being homophobic, bigoted and hugely offensive.

Leading the online storm of protest were those most high-profile of Twitter advocates, Stephen Fry and Derren Brown, who between them have almost one million followers.

Indeed, the force of the public’s reaction to Moir’s comments was such that  it forced the Press Complaints Commission’s (PCC) website to crash (many visitors to the site were led there by The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker, who provided a link in his “Comment is free” article condemning Moir’s piece), companies such as Marks & Spencer decided to pull their advertising from the online edition of the column, and the Daily Mail quickly changed the offensive headline from “There was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death” to “A Strange, Lonely and Troubling Death”.

It also prompted Moir to issue a statement claiming there had been a “heavily orchestrated internet campaign” against her. This is a view backed up by an article in The Telegraph stating: “Twitter followers, attaching a JanMoir hashtag to their messages, have been proclaiming all afternoon that this is their moment. Socially liberal new media reckon they have humiliated a bigoted, spiteful dinosaur (and embarrassed the Daily Mail, as well).”

However, as one commentator to Charlie Brooker’s reaction the events on The Guardian website put it: “Perhaps she really does envision Stephen Fry stroking his chin in front of a wall of monitors like something out of Watchmen, co-ordinating his global ‘internet campaign’.”

Fry himself tweeted: “Staggering ignorance of social networking and how it works if she thinks public responses like this are, or can be, ‘orchestrated’.”

Elsewhere on Saturday, a video of an old man being verbally abused by a tube worker was posted online, re-distributed on Twitter and YouTube, and as a result, made the Ten O’ Clock news that night. Because of the exposure, the guard has been suspended, Boris Johnson has launched an investigation (he tweeted) and the train company was forced to go on television and reassure the public that that type of behaviour was unacceptable.

Aside from the debate surrounding the nature of Moir’s views (just read the Brooker article), Saturday’s events were fascinating to watch unfold from a ringside seat at the edge of cyberspace. The internet was harnessed in such a way that brought all types of people together with a common view. Yes, links were posted, such as the PCC’s, for people to register their complaints, but more than anything, it was word-of-mouth and the instant availability of information that spurred the events of the day.

In the words of Derren Brown: “Yesterday, first-hand, I saw Twitter achieve two apparent results for civility…Moir’s interpretation was wrong, and betrays a misguided notion about the nature of Twitter and similar forms of networking. There is no orchestration – just the rapid spread of information. Tweets (posts) are passed on, word gets around, and when a Twitter giant like Stephen Fry mentions it, a million people hear and many pass it on themselves.”