Bullying, harassment, violent content, hate, porn and other problematic content circulates on digital platforms. Who should be responsible for stoping the spread of this content and how?

Introduction

With the rapid development of the times, the rise of content on digital platforms has brought about a huge change in people’s lives in recent years. However, at the same time there is a large amount of content containing violence, pornography, harassment and other problematic content on digital platforms. The monitoring and regulation of digital media is a serious issue in light of this phenomenon. The benefits of digital platforms for consumers and businesses come with costs and consequences. Whether in Australia or in other countries, governments must now deal with these costs and consequences(Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,2019).Furthermore, it is not only governments, but also user groups and digital platforms themselves that need to contribute equally to regulation. This essay will focus on how the governments, social media platforms and online users can take responsibility and stop these problems from occurring.

Problematic content impact

Inappropriate information about online content on social platforms can be extremely harmful and impactful to society and people’s lives. Cyberbullying is a very common problem. According to the study by Bitdefender, three out of 10 US teens has admitted that they have been experienced bullying or attacked once or more times online. 14-16 year olds experience cyberbullying to a much higher degree. Not only that, but also many people are experiencing online harassment. Not only does cyber harassment have a negative impact on social networking sites, as victims often quit the service but the emotional distress caused by cyber attacks can also lead to victims ending their lives (van Laer,2014).

Because of the variety of problems that occur and spread on the internet, addressing and reducing the occurrence of these problems is an important issue. The users of digital platforms, the government and the providers of digital platforms should all be responsible for this to provide a better environment.

The government regulation

Firstly, as a government, there’s quite a bit of debate about how to regulate the Internet. As an example, in 2014, a campaign was launched in South Dakota warning people not to pull hard on the steering wheel when turning on black ice. However, the topic was labelled with the suggestive pun “don’t drive”. The campaign was therefore eventually cancelled because the government felt that it was an insinuation to an important safety message. This shows that communication between social media and the government is problematic and can sometimes have unintended effects. However, there is a need for government protection on social media platforms. In many countries there are such laws. Privacy and data protection laws  is a important way to build trust for people on the Internet marketplace. They can  improve consumer protection by visiting the root causes of market inefficiencies such as information asymmetries and imbalances in bargaining power(Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,2019). Stronger privacy and data protection laws will also enable consumers to get more informed selections about  how can they deal with their data. In Canada，privacy government has decide close cooperation with stakeholders in order  to develop regulations. The Digital Privacy Act in Canada does this well.

The dissemination of content on Internet platforms is global. Therefore, in the face of the regulation of the public domain of the Internet, governments need to operate and relate to the institutions that exercise compulsory regulation of cultural content. By this means, they motion power over cultural production, circulation and consumption. Yet  operation of this regulatory process and the potential tenets that tell  it are indispensably linked to the forms of state and economic relations prevalent in the society (Flew et al.,2019). Any national policy is likely to affect international relations, either directly or indirectly. The government’s policy for the future should be, first of all, not to deny users the right to free speech on online platforms, but to regulate and prevent harmful and problematic content. In addition, the government should consider the political, economic, interest and relationship aspects of government policy in the face of international issues. In general, the government is responsible for the problematic content on social media platforms and has taken similar actions to regulate and organize it in favour of enacting laws.

Social digital platforms

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all popular social digital platforms in our society right now. With approximately 19 million Australians using Google search and 17.3 million visiting Facebook each month, the social media giants have elevated themselves to a dominant market position, largely controlling the content users see or hear on a daily basis (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,2019). However, the spread of questionable content on social platforms can be detrimental to society. Many people and even celebrities are effect by online bullying. It is probably that people can experience similar problems such as online violence, online spamming and other similar issues at any time. For example, the composition of a user’s information stream and the accessibility and visibility of content on social media – occurs through a combination of manual and algorithmic decision-making processes. the ACCC proposes that social media  platforms build an industry guideline to manage the handling of complaints about  the information that is not true and it has problem. The proposal aims to increase transparency and promote consumers by communicating and enforcing the procedures and  actions that digital platforms should apply when solving these complaints. The proposed guidelines will also expect appropriate responses to complaints about malicious information (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission,2019). Many platforms also have regulations regarding the publication of platform content, such as Facebook Community Code Outlines what is allowed and prohibited on Facebook. In addition, when comparing platforms, the study found that Twitter has lower community standards and that disturbing content is not removed as quickly as other platforms(Campbell，2022).

Online Users

While social platforms have a responsibility to create safe online communities, users must also practice ethical communication and social engagement. Firstly, it is important that the conversations for a user on social platforms are ethical, secondly people must take responsibility for their behavior and finally and consider how their communication will be interpreted before posting. Users need to be media aware and media literate and realize that social media is not an environment for harming others and creating social problems, and that users should not post content that contains violence, pornography, insults or other topics. This can cause unnecessary trouble, and similarly controversial topics should be avoided. It is not right to post such content on social media platforms, and it is not safe to post information that is too personal and can be compromised at any time. Don’t be confrontational or overly emotional in your conversations with people. Although it is true that there is freedom of speech on the internet, the negative effects of this should not be underestimated if a very serious problem occurs.

Conclusion

Overall, the development of digital platforms has both advantages and disadvantages. Digital platforms provide a huge market and promote economic development. However, the regulation of the content of digital platforms needs to be further strengthened. Each part, from the government, to the platform to the individual, should do their part. The government sets the government, the platforms have regulations, and the users comply with the regulations and have a code of ethics. Only progress in these three different areas will prevent these problems of violence, harassment and pornography from occurring on the internet. This will be an ongoing problem.

Reference list:

1. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. (2019). Digital Platforms Inquiry. https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/digital-platforms-inquiry-executive-summary
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3. BBC,(2022) 7 stars who have personal experiences of online bullying, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3QcD9W13Dr0bxmt4CMWVkGk/7-stars-who-have-personal-experiences-of-online-bullying
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