ANTI SOCIAL MEDIA UNCOVERED
÷LOTS OF ABUSE DIRECTED AT SPORTSMEN AND WOMEN IS FROM ANONYMOUS ACCOUNTS. CAN’T SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS DEMAND ID WHEN OPENING AN ACCOUNT?
THIS is very unlikely to happen, despite many currently campaigning for it. Insisting that all accounts carry a name and image, perhaps requiring documentary proof of ID, might seem like the solution because anonymity fuels social media abuse. But government and the industry agree that the downsides would outweigh the benefits. Anonymity is seen as vital to many individual groups from domestic violence victims, to young people trying to understand their own sexuality, to investigative journalists and whistleblowers. Platforms also argue that any need to provide ID verification would be detrimental to the free speech they are proud of saying they nurture.
÷ARE CHILDREN GUILTY OF ONLINE ABUSE?
YES. In 70 per cent of cases where Kick it Out met and tried to engage with perpetrators of abuse, that individual was a child or teenager. The 20 racist messages and death threats sent to Ian Wright came from an 18-year-old, Patrick O’Brien, venting his frustration at losing a FIFA video game. Anonymity creates such possibilities for a naive, attentionseeking, sometimes bored minority. Both Instagram and Twitter (which is less popular among the young) set a minimum age at 13. Twitter’s App recommends 17 as a minimum. But it’s easy to set up fictitious, anonymous accounts on Twitter and Instagram repeatedly, if accounts are blocked.
÷WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS DOING ABOUT IT?
THEY have introduced prompts designed to discourage abuse, what Twitter calls: ‘thinking before you Tweet’. Instagram asks users ‘Are you sure you want to post this?’ if its automated software picks up suspicious words. Twitter is trialling something similar and asks users if they have read something they are about to share. Suspicious replies to Tweets can also now be hidden from the recipient. Far more significant is ‘content moderation’, the system driven by artificial intelligence and algorithms but assisted by humans to spot offensive messages, images and emojis, remove them and shut down an account. But it’s unclear how much of resources is invested in this function. Some 15,000 human moderators are employed globally by Facebook and Instagram, 10,000 by YouTube and 1500 by Twitter.
SHOULD THEY DO MORE?
IF platforms were investing as much as they should in policing their systems, we would hear far more about it. They certainly have the money. Twitter is valued at more than £30billion, Facebook at £383bn. Dublin-based academic Dr Paloma Viejo Otero tested the Facebook system by posting a deeply misogynistic message. It was two hours before the system blocked it.
WHAT DOES THE UK GOVERNMENT AIM TO DO?
LEGISLATE. And, the Online Harms Bill will for the first time mean that tech firms have a legal duty of care to protect users from abuse even if, in the case of larger ‘Category 1’ platforms, that abuse is below the legal threshold. They can no longer insist they are just innocently ‘enabling communications’, rather than publishing content.
CAN’T CLUBS JUST BREAK OFF FROM TWITTER ETC?
THE SPFL and SFA have both adopted what you might call a watching brief on the effectiveness of even a temporary boycott by Scottish clubs. The league, being a members organisation, will leave the decision up to clubs and offer any support they can. It’s understood that the SFA, having just hosted a summit on tackling racism in football, would be interested in getting involved in any strategy that is specific to Scotland. Yet industry insiders say that social media companies are too big an engine for commercial growth for clubs to seriously consider cutting off the flow completely. ‘Football clubs are in a really tricky position,’ says sports business analyst Richard Gillis. ‘They have seen social media as a way to monetise. They’ve grabbed the followers and added them to their sales decks. They’re profiting from it.’