This article discusses the discoveries of a parliamentary report on social media and the issue of illegal and dangerous content which is easily accessible. Hate speech, terror recruitment videos and sexual images of children take too long to be removed, according to the Home Affairs Select Committee report, and this ultimately is a dangerous threat to the general public. The report also suggested that the government should consider making the sites help pay to police content. However, a former Facebook executive argues that the report "bashes companies" rather than offering any real solutions to the issue. The report recommends various solutions, such as the government consulting on requiring social media firms to contribute to the cost of the police's counter-terrorism internet referral unit and fines
Examples
- Twitter refused to remove a cartoon depicting male ethnic minority migrants abusing a semi-naked white woman while stabbing her baby to death on the grounds it was not in breach of its "hateful conduct policy"
- YouTube refused to remove a video entitled "Jews admit organizing White Genocide" on the basis it "did not cross the line into hate speech"
- On Facebook there were openly anti-Semitic and Islamophobic community pages such as "Ban Islam". Facebook removed some posts but not the community pages themselves because its policy allows criticism of religion, but not hate against people because of their religion
I believe that government interference is necessary in some cases as some of the content posted is a threat to the wider public, such as hate crimes which can provoke actual attacks on citizens. However, social media sites should also take responsibility and create their own solutions to police content.
This article discusses how Twitter wants more leaders to utilise Twitter in a similar manner to Donald Trump during the elections due to the benefits it has provided with twitter such as its strongest user growth in a year. Although Twitter is not entirely attributing its boost to the world leader, it is suggested by one of their executives that Trump’s prolific usage was a good model for other leaders, and for its business. “We’d love it if every world leader used Twitter as their primary mechanism to talk to their constituencies,”. Donald Trump is still continuing to use Twitter, in the recent months he has used the social network to bully foreign governments, threaten companies, and accuse his predecessor, Barack Obama, of tapping his phones.
- Twitter’s monthly users increased by 9 million (or 6%), to 328 million
- Its daily users increased by 14% in that same time period (the company doesn’t share its total daily active user
I find it interesting how Twitter had a boost in users during the US elections, which suggests that more and more people are joining Twitter becoming reliant on Twitter as their source of information
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