Social media has such an impact on our lives, are we safe online?
BBC Sounds have recently posted a piece debating social media regulation. Instagram changed their policy to hide harmful content after the suicide of 14 year old.
The YouTube Adpocalypse
The YouTube “adpocalypse’ was a phenomenon when advertisers threatened to pull all their money out of Youtube if they were displayed with extreme content.
The main issue with regulation would be censorship. So we want to hide harmful and extreme content. But should YouTube censor creators with mild profanities in their content?
YouTube demonetised anything even slightly offensive after the “Adpocalypse.” “I just accepted it and said this is probably more trouble than it’s worth,” said Andrew Kay, also known as Angry Aussie on YouTube.
He said the control should go back to the creators.
What do the experts think?
Professor Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert from the University of Surrey said harmful content has no place online.
“You would expect that when there was a subject like self harm, that’s manifestly not the sort of thing you should be encouraging someone to find out more about that they would actually close that off but they don’t,” he said.
Social media needs regulation. But bad regulation could be almost worse than no regulation, he said.
“Social media is a global phenomenon and we’re trying to regulate it with national laws. Each country will have a different approach but it’s global so who’s rules do we follow?” Alan thinks we should have a one-size-fits-all approach across the board but the global nature of social media makes this difficult.
“There needs to be something, a framework to force these companies to be transparent,” he said.
Social media regulation will undeniably improve online experiences. It will make our online lives safer. Social media platforms are not defined as publishers and so cannot be regulated in the same way as newspapers and television.
Should our social media be more regulated?
The gut answer is yes. Of course our social media should be more regulated so we aren’t exposed to harmful, extreme or inappropriate content thrown up on our feeds by algorithms.
