SOCIAL media should never be seen as a barometer of the sanity of a nation.

And yet this week as Steve Clarke became the conduit for a discussion on a weary old problem, the comments that greeted every tweet and every posted story made one’s eyebrows leap to the point of disappearing into the middle of a hairline.

Even Steven Gerrard, disappointingly, was at it. The Ibrox manager had a chance to condemn unequivocally the hard-to-ignore ‘Fenian bastard’ chant that rang around the stadium on Wednesday night as jubilant Rangers revelled in a 5-0 Scottish Cup win but instead indulged in his own whatabouttery; Clarke had been mute on Kris Boyd being the subject of (equally vocal) abuse on Sunday ergo why now suddenly have a problem with it?

It has been the recurring theme this week.

Having been in attendance at Rugby Park on Sunday, the abuse handed out to “fat orange bastard” Boyd was both equally of note and equally cringe worthy. Clarke had not been asked about it post-match, but was rather invited to offer an opinion on the coin that TV cameras had spotted being lobbed in the former Ibrox striker’s direction, which at that point he had neither seen nor heard about.

The difference between Sunday and Wednesday and why Clarke was questioned about the sectarian singing does not, as social media might have you believe, have sinister roots.

Rather, one reporter spotted that as the singing grew more vocal, Clarke’s reaction to it became more noticeable. As it got to the stage that his focus on the game had been entirely derailed by the insulting chanting directed at him, Clarke’s bubbling anger was difficult to ignore. Without his visible upset it’s fair to say it would probably have gone unremarked upon.

And, back to social media expertise, that is not because there is an agenda not to speak of sectarianism nor to highlight it but because so many journalists have grown weary of the subject. Or rather, they have grown weary at the reporting and highlighting of a perennial issue that has never been addressed.

But there is an answer.

It is not popular, it will not be well received but if Scottish football is serious about moving away from the sectarian backwater it has been shown to be rooted in then the only answer is strict liability.

And even then the punishment needs to be harshest, with serial offenders ultimately docked points for the behaviour of their fans. If that seems draconian then it also seems to be the only plausible way of removing offensive behaviour from football grounds and dragging the game into 2019.

The biggest problem, of course, is that clubs have been vociferous in their refusal to buy into strict liability. Voted out, it seems that there is little chance of the motion coming to pass.

But fines do not work. Celtic have repeatedly found themselves in the dock with UEFA but it has had little impact on the behaviour of fans. A three-strikes and you are out that leads to docked points is harsh but seems like the last resort.

When Clarke, emotional and clearly affected, spoke this week he unpicked the scab that has sat on the surface of Scottish football for as long as any of us can remember. Clarke’s anecdote yesterday about almost being the first headline Catholic to sign for Rangers in the ‘80s was a jarring reminder of an absurd religious apartheid policy that was in place at Ibrox until the arrival of Graeme Souness.

Society has moved on since then, Rangers have moved on since then but the events of the club since 2012 appear to have rekindled the anger that underpinned those old prejudices.

And Celtic cannot assume the moral high ground among all this either. If ‘Fuck the Pope and the Vatican’ is audible wherever Rangers go, Celtic cannot turn a deaf ear to the pro-IRA chanting that has become far more prevalent at Celtic Park than it has been since Fergus McCann’s time.

Indeed, the video that circulated on Twitter this week at a Celtic supporters’ gathering with a little boy – no more than 7 or 8 – swearing and singing odious lyrics about Jimmy Bell, Rangers’ kit man, shone a light on the problems that still turn up at Celtic’s door.

Back in November at the club’s AGM one supporter stood up and put this very question to the Parkhead board: “This ‘cheer up Stevie G song…we are better than that. It shames us, it embarrasses us. That is a song that originated from the Rangers support as sectarian abuse to Tommy Burns and now we are doing it. It is embarrassing. There’s a higher prevalence of these songs than five years ago. I don’t know what the answer is but I want board to act on it.”

The reaction to this question on social media offered its own exhausting indication of how deeply entrenched the problems are.