It is undeniable that the digital media platforms for individuals to interact with others especially in nowadays. Users present their online identities in different characters both in positive and negative ways. For those who bring positive energy to the publics illustrate the bright side of the world. The problematic contents on social media not only harm individuals but also impact on the safety of the society due to the widespread of these contents. Bullying, harassment, violent, and pornographic content existed in reality and in online society danger the mental health and even the physical body seriously particularly for children. Hate is the demonstration of discrimination on the minority and female which digital platforms establish the indirect medium and protection for these negative communities to express their hostility and hurt others even in anonymous way. The responsibility of avoiding and stopping these issues should be considered from who are involved during the process of posting unfriendly contents. In this essay, it will analyse from users, digital platforms, and governments as the three main stakeholders who are responsible for preventing the problematic contents on digital platforms. There are various strategies for different stakeholders to change the situation of the spread of these contents.
First of all, users are the source and publishers of the problematic contents. Social media provides the platform for individuals to communicate others. The content totally depends on the users and their experiences which implies some users apply the social media to demonstrate their unequal psychology to others and to break the balance between peace and chaos of online environment. For example, social scientists and others have observed how social media posts and other online hate speech could influence the act of violence. The image illustrates the percentage that agree ‘People should be able to make statement that are offensive to minority groups publicly in 2015’. The highest occupation of people who agree to this action is from the United State. It is related to the phenomenon that there is deeper cognition of the right of free speech in the United State. (Laub, 2019) The right of free speech becomes their excuse to reflect their racism and discrimination online which even became their assault weapons which make online hate speech transform into real-life behaviors. They post their offensive words to other users as they want which make them as the obvious stakeholder to take the responsibility to stop such online speech.
Fig 1. Percent that agree ‘People should be able to make statements that are offensive to minority groups publicly’, Council Foreign Relations, 2019.
For these social media users, the first approach to preserve the problematic content spread online is to increase their qualities through education. Education on their social perception could gradually change their bias on the society and the malevolence to the diversity of the world. They execute their online activities to upload impolite speech based on their education background and personal experience. There is a school focus on the education about the preservation on teenagers from extremism and radicalism in the United Kingdom, named Educate Against Hate. It provides practical advice, support, and resources to protect children from bullying and unfair experience. Extremist group notices the vulnerable and sensitive psychology of teen as being eager to prove their identities, so this group spread their ideology through the Internet to post offensive content on social media and impact the mental health of children in a negative way. (Educate Against Hate, 2019) As the related education popularizes, the quality of individual rises which could reduce the wrong ideology and problematic posts and comments on digital platforms. The other solution for individual users to stop such content is to organize anti-racism and anti-hate associations. These groups stand out to speak for the victims and the supporters who have the correct cognition of the society as the counter speech. Effective practice of counter speech could elaborate the negative aspects of online harmful speech in a moral and political approach to protect the minority and neutralize the online environment. (Donzelli, 2021) Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition (ARCC) is a global organization to improve the relevance and content globally as all countries have some aspect of racism, classism and hate that must be addressed. It welcomes every individual to be participate in no matter the races, genders, identities, political views, and religions. Organizations like ARCC contribute to reduce cultural bias and unequal issues and to establish a better network atmosphere.
In addition, social media offers the opportunity for individuals who prone to racism, misogyny, or homophobia to upload harmful contents. These digital platforms are definitely obligated for extending these issues while the nature of these platforms is to provide the contemporary and new medium to present self-identity under the operation of the network. Since these tech giants rely on the Internet and the right of free speech for users to create commercial benefits, it implies that these companies cannot avoid the side effect of such free speech as the users can decide the published content to be useful or harmful. The solution of managing the contents for digital platforms is necessary and emergent. Formulating the policy to limit the problematic contents to be published is one of the methods to regulate the users. Content moderation is the system designed for webmasters in contemporary media platforms to choose and sort out the informative contents and the illegal, irrelevant, or resulting contents. The sensitive and harmful phrases when users editing the posts, the restriction would pop up and forbid the contents to be sent. More social media platforms gradually framed their policies and rules to undertake their obligation and liability to manage the harmful contents. (Gillespie, 2018a) Twitter has set up The Twitter Rules to serve the public conversation and protect the safety and liberty when users doing their online activities. With the increasing awareness on the importance of social media moderation, these rules cover the restriction on most of the problematic content including the violence, terrorism, child sexual exploitation, suicide, porn and illegal regulated goods and services. The media platforms begin to enhance the quality of the information and manage to maintain the network social order as their responsibilities.
The third stakeholder who should be obligated to is governments. The convenience of social media brings the benefits to the ill-disposed groups who spread the misinformation on the Internet as a tool to impact the society and reflect their prejudgments into the real-life illegal behaviors. If the government do not legislate these online illegal actions and the spread of these misinformation is not restrained, the balances between safety and danger, peace and chaos could be broken by these issues which trigger to the irreparable results to the world. How to regulate these contents from the national level hinges on different countries and their requirements on politics. In most of the European Union nations, they apply ‘conditional liability’ which is similar to American rule for copy right and free speech. Platforms are not entirely liable to the contents if they are not related to illegal or illicit topics which platforms are considered as the third-party to block and remove the contents if the court or the state requires. For China and some nations in the Middle East, they execute ‘strict liability’ which means all the contents must be governed in laws on the Internet medium. The political speech for users on digital platforms is limited and even prohibited. The state can intervene to the control of the social media content to adjust the cognition of the publics. (Gillespie, 2018b) For example, while the LGBTQ+ as a minority group to make a voice, share their identity proudly, and organize some movements to ask for equality like #LGBTQRights on Twitter, Weibo in China post the new outlines from the official manager account to block the contents and accounts related to homosexual. As it is stated in the post that Weibo arranged this regulation based on ‘Cyber Security Law’ and other regulations, this reflects the national government contradicted the existed of LGBTQ+ groups compared to the traditional cognition of gender in China. (Koetse, 2018) As China government considers this as a sensitive content to be published on social media which is totally the opportunity for the minority to speak out in western culture. The different political requirements change the approaches to govern the contents on social media platforms in different countries for governments to take the responsibility to protect the society.
Fig 2. Weibo post from the official manager account, Weibo, 2018.
In conclusion, users need to receive quality education to lower the prejudgments on the minorities while the minorities should establish their own communities to fight for their own rights. It is also necessary for contemporary media to regulate the platforms, to preserve the safety and privacy of users and to set up a friendly network environment through their policies. Various laws and political intervention need to be formulated by governments to prevent the online hate contents transform into more serious real-life issues depending on the politics in different nations. Although the development of the Internet cannot be governed by any nation-state, inappropriate and harmful contents on social media are liable for all users, platforms, and governments to stop.
Reference
#LGBTQRights Social Media Movement – #MoveMe. (2017). #MoveMe. https://moveme.berkeley.edu/project/lgbtqrights/
Donzelli, S. (2021). Countering Harmful Speech Online. (In)effective Strategies and the Duty to Counterspeak. Phenomenology & Mind, 20, 76. https://doi.org/10.17454/pam-2007
Educate Against Hate. (2019). Educate against Hate. Educate against Hate. https://educateagainsthate.com/
Gillespie, T. (2018a). Custodians of the internet : platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media (pp. 1–23). Yale University Press.
Gillespie, T. (2018b). The SAGE handbook of social media (pp. 254–278). The SAGE.
Gorwa, R. (2019). The platform governance triangle: conceptualising the informal regulation of online content. Internet Policy Review, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.14763/2019.2.1407
Koetse, M. (2018, April 14). Weibo’s New Online Guidelines: No Homosexual Content Allowed. Whatsonweibo. https://www.whatsonweibo.com/weibos-new-online-guidelines-no-homosexuality-allowed/
Laub, Z. (2019, July 19). Hate Speech on Social Media: Global Comparisons. Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hate-speech-social-media-global-comparisons#chapter-title-0-2
Twitter Help Center. (2019, February 12). The Twitter Rules. Twitter.com; Twitter Help Center. https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules