Should Social Media Be Regulated? Let’s Talk…

The media and communications sphere has been greatly impacted by the revolution of technology or the digital revolution. A deduction can be made that the usage of technology in areas such as communications, banking and finance trade, business and commerce, and education are all being transformed by the efficiency of digital encoding, the speed of digital transactions and by the radically new social, economic, business and behavioural models that media generally support.

The overarching technological advancements have fueled the human impulse to communicate through advanced interventions in digital technology i.e social media. Thomas Aichner et al, (2020) describe Social Media (SM) as an “umbrella term that describes a variety of online platforms, including blogs, business networks, collaborative projects, enterprise social networks (SN), forums, microblogs, photo sharing, products review, social bookmarking, social gaming, Social networking, video sharing, and virtual world et al”. Overall, “Social media has become so intertwined with our daily lives…revealing an astonishing data-driven estimation of 2.65 billion people using various social media platforms worldwide. This number is projected to increase to almost 3.1 billion in 2021.” (Edwards, 2019)

The Social Dilemma

This widespread use of social media has revolutionised socialisation and communication, as it provides a space for us to share information, communicate with others, express ourselves and stay informed. Unfortunately, although this revolution has been liberating and enabling, it has also brought serious threats. Countries like Jamaica are faced with a series of challenges regarding the management of risks and the potential harm that is associated with social media use. A survey conducted by the BCJ in October (2018), uncovered the public’s growing concern pertaining to children in Jamaica being exposed to online dangers. Reports also indicated that Eighty-seven per cent said that their greatest concern was that children might see pornographic videos involving other children. Additional concerns were that children were exposed to violent and general pornographic material. While Seventy per cent of Jamaicans were worried about fake news and their children’s exposure to graphic videos and images from accidents and crime scenes. Additionally, an overwhelming majority of Jamaicans, i.e. (82 per cent) said the BCJ should educate the public on how to protect themselves and their families online. Moreover, it is then safe to say that given the essence of the social media business model, there is heavy reliance on leveraging individual users’ data to push highly personalized content to maximize usage and overall scroll time. Thus incentivization will take place regarding the customization and proliferation of specific content, which can potentially reveal more extremist and unfavourable content. Consequently, the need for regulating Social Media in an effort to encourage desirable outcomes such as responsible and accurate posting, preventing character assassination and credibility of Sources along with Positive values & attitudes.

Legislative Challenges

• Most existing international laws on terrorism do not apply to cyber attacks as the damage is not physical but rather ‘disruptive.’ This makes it harder to identify perpetrators — are Russian trolls independent or state agents?
• Strong encryption makes criminal and terrorist activity invisible to law enforcement but is also important to dissenters in totalitarian states.
• Deleting content that does not have an unambiguous link to violence could be portrayed as censorship and will support extremist narratives of persecution.

Challenges with Social Media Platforms; Data retrieved from the BCJ indicated that:

• Bias Algorithms search existing data and can pick up biases in the data set used for training; e.g. crime predictive algorithms that learn from police reports will reflect any prejudices in those reports.
• Context (e.g. words modified by context or intonation).
• Language evolves (especially street language).
• Misinformation can be disguised, e.g. spurious information about vaccines presented in a pseudo-scientific manner that makes it appear credible.
• Social media companies have argued that their policies are difficult to enforce. It can be tricky at times to distinguish hate speech from satire or commentary, for example. Some companies say the onus should not be on them to write the rules for the Internet and have called for government regulation.

Major Challenges:

• It is rather challenging to find ways to limit damage/inappropriate practices while protecting democracy, freedom of expression and a respectable level of personal privacy.

Regulatory Measures for Social Media — Jamaica

• Greater supervision of cyberspace: Relying largely on the act of self-governance by these social media users and technology companies. Which will also include additional legal responsibilities
• Encourage content monitoring protocols/systems in social media and technology companies, as well as businesses that contain high-level engagement with their respective audiences online.
• However, most importantly, Emphasize the prevention and promotion of digital literacy. This allows people the chance to utilize digital resources while guarding against malicious content.
• Devise a behavioural communication initiative within the cybersecurity awareness campaign that will encourage and trigger people/society/communities to adopt healthy, beneficial and positive behavioural practices online.
• Implementing this initiative should utilise change ambassadors within online social groups to generate that level of imploration at the micro-level.

Conclusion

It is imperative to highlight that fundamentally speaking, “in this age, one of the most powerful approaches to regulation will not necessarily be the writing of laws/legislative measures, but the aiming towards Media and Digital Literacy. In short, making citizens more aware of the new landscape in which they are operating and highlighting the opportunities and risks involved. Nevertheless, we must discuss these things and come up with a framework relevant for the age we live in”.

References

Ghosh, D. (2021). Are We Entering a New Era of Social Media Regulation? Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2021/01/are-we-entering-a-new-era-of-social-media-regulation

GUNN, T. (2016). Cyber-Security Awareness Campaign to be Launched in July. JAMAICA INFORMATION SERVICE. https://jis.gov.jm/cyber-security-awareness-campaign-launched-july/

Thomas Aichner, Matthias Grünfelder, Oswin Maurer, and Deni Jegeni.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.ahead of printhttp://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0134

Edwards, J. (2019). Judi-Ann Edwards | Social media and the law. Commentary | Jamaica Gleaner.https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20191019/judi-ann-edwards-social-media-and-law