In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet, the explosion of multimedia content has brought much information. At the same time, bullying, harassment, violent content, hate, porn, and other problematic content frequently appear online. However, the Internet’s architecture has challenges in combating harmful content. “These include the permanence, itinerancy, anonymity and cross-jurisdictional character of online content, the wide range of platform architectures and a heterogenous, multi-stakeholder system of internet governance” （UNESCO, 2021, p.7）. This article will explore the harm of harmful content through the events of ’14-year-old girl Jasmine’s death’ and ‘Russian anchor froze his girlfriend to death.’ Furthermore, it will analyze how governments, platforms, and individuals should organize and prevent the spread of harmful content.
Social Media a Factor in 14-Year-Old’s Death
In 2017, Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl from the UK, took her own life after browsing images and videos of depression, self-harm, and even suicide on Instagram and other social media sites.
An investigation into Molly’s death recently concluded that harmful online content was a factor in her death. “She died from an act of self-harm whilst suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content,” coroner Andrew Walker said (Linge, 2022).
Platforms automatically collect large amounts of content and customer data (Van, 2018). Big data and social media collection methods make real-time inferences and predictions about an individual’s social behavior and preferences（Unver, 2022）. When viewers are interested in certain things, the platform will push similar related content through algorithms to make people addicted to keeping them browsing.
After the Molly Russell incident, a “sensitivity screens” protection will be rolled out on Instagram that hides images of self-harm to protect young people.
The supervision of social software on content is not perfect, leading to many harmful contents eroding viewers. Although most social media community guidelines mention a ban on posting harmful speech and content. Popular social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have come up with bans on harmful content such as nudity, pornography, and violence. But some harmful content still appears in public view.
A Russian YouTuber’s girlfriend dies during a Livestream
With the rapid development of media, more and more people have begun using online platforms to earn money. Livestream is rising, and many anchors show their powers in front of the camera to get more attention. Anchors make money by playing video games, performing talent shows, and selling products.
The Russian anchor Stas Reeflay earns money by gratuity from viewers. When the tippers made demands, such as asking him to abuse and beat up his girlfriend, he complied. Reeflay uses his girlfriend as a moneymaker for live-streaming effectiveness and content.
As the tipping escalates and the audience reacts feverishly, Reeflay gradually spirals out of control. During a live broadcast, he beat his girlfriend at the behest of viewers and then locked her outside, leading to her death.
Inexplicably, after learning of his girlfriend’s death, he continued to broadcast until the police arrived.
In addition to Reeflay, the audience in the Livestream studio was also to blame for the tragedy. The atmosphere in the studio became violent and radical. A group of people with no boundaries entered the studio, and together they turned the studio into a place of human distortion. They see what they want to see, and then they walk out of the studio without any responsibility. These large numbers of viewers, because of anonymity, are free to speak freely on the Internet without fear of punishment (Cooper & Blumenfeld, 2010).
Reeflay was reported to be broadcasting live on Donatepay, a Russian platform. The platform’s lax supervision over anchors’ words and deeds led to the tragedy. To attract traffic, many live streaming platforms do not interfere with these low-level and illegal live streaming and connive the spread of such content.
After the incident, YouTube suspended reedlay’s account, and the original video was removed. Youtube said it was on a different platform but that Posting related content on YouTube would be removed (Greenspan, 2020).
How to stop and prevent it?
Government:
Evgeny Mozorov, a thinker, criticized the American government for allowing the Internet to grow freely in his book the Net Delusion. The government should strengthen the supervision of network platforms and put forward effective laws to protect an exemplary network environment.
With the Chinese government’s participation, the platform governance is rigorous (Jeroen et al., 2019). Many sensitive words are not searchable on Chinese Internet platforms.
As people’s lives increasingly depend on the network, the network environment has been paid more and more attention. Many countries and regions began to put forward and implement some policies to ensure a healthy network environment.
For the regulation of digital platforms, it can be implemented to let the third-party platform supervise. This way, it avoids the possibility of lax supervision within the platform.
Platforms:
Platforms require more rigorous content moderation. Its purpose is to filter low-quality content, effectively prevent harmful content from appearing on the platform, improve user experience, and maintain a good platform network environment.
For example, videos posted by users on Douyin must be reviewed for several hours or days before they can be posted online.
Platforms should more strictly regulate the presence of harmful content in search terms. Terms such as self-harm, suicide, and sexual violence should be banned from searches. At the same time, the supervision of teenagers should be stricter.
China sharply restricts the use of the Internet by people under 18. The game has implemented an anti-addiction system and real-name verification to prevent teenagers from becoming addicted to gaming. Other platforms have also implemented juvenile protection systems to prevent minors from viewing harmful content.
Individuals:
Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg points out that platforms should stop people from doing anything online without their names attached (Bosker, 2011). Due to the anonymization of the Internet, many people hide in small spaces and post dark words and content. Because no one knows who they are, this causes them to feel less guilty about their actions. People who see harmful content on digital platforms can report it and not spread it again.
The most effective way for individuals is to report destructive content and comments, and do not spread harmful speech.
Conclusion:
There is no denying that the spread of harmful content has a huge impact on society. Browsing harmful content may lead to the death of young lives. A lousy Internet environment will aggravate people’s anger. For perpetrators, anonymity is their protection. The spread of harmful content is not only the responsibility of platforms and society but also the responsibility of every human being.
References:
Bosker, B. (2011, September 26). Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg: Anonymity Online ‘Has To Go Away’. Huffpost. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/randi-zuckerberg-anonymity-online_n_910892
Cooper, R. M., & Blumenfeld, W. J. (2012). Responses to Cyberbullying: A Descriptive Analysis of the Frequency of and Impact on LGBT and Allied Youth. Journal of LGBT Youth, 9(2), 153–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/19361653.2011.649616
Greenspan, R. E. (2022, December 8). A Russian YouTuber’s girlfriend appeared to die during a livestream while locked in the cold. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.co.za/russian-youtuber-reeflay-girlfriend-reportedly-dies-livestream-2020-12
Jeroen, K., Thomas, P., Zeng, G. & Chow, Y. (2019). The Platformization of Chinese
Society: infrastructure, governance, and practice. Chinese Journal of Communication,
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https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.sydney.edu.au/10.1080/17544750.2019.1644008
Linge. M. K. (2022, October 8). How London teen Molly Russell’s suicide could spark social media reforms for US kids. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2022/10/08/molly-russells-death-may-spark-social-media-reforms-for-us-kids/
UNESCO. (2021). Addressing hate speech on social media: contemporary challenges. pp.7. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379177_chi
Unver, H. A. (2022). Using Social Media to Monitor Conflict-Related Migration: A Review of Implications for A.I. Forecasting. Social Sciences, 11(9), 395. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/socsci11090395
Van, J. (2018). The Platform Society as a Contested Concept. In The Platform Society. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.003.0002
