Censorship & Control

Censorship & Control

Key Principle: There is currently no single body or organization which regulates social media.

Social media does fall into within pre-existing regulations/UK laws such as:

• Online Safety Act (Jan 2024)
• Data Protection Act (1995)
• Libel
• Race Relations Act
• Criminal Justice & Public Order Act 
• Race & Religious Hatred Act
• Criminal Justice & Immigration Act

New Online Safety Bill (2024)

The online safety bill enforces new duties on social media platforms to make their sites safer for children and adults to take down illegal content and implement new systems to provide additional safety (e.g. age verifications, kids versions of apps like YouTube Kids). This act was due to Molly Russel, a 14-year-old who died in 2019 due to harmful social media content like suicide where due to the algorithm, this content would continuously appear. Ofcom are now the independent regulator of online safety. 

Censored content for children would include:

• Pornography
• Promotion of Suicide
• Eating Disorders
• Anything based on criminality

Priority Offences Include:

• Child sexual abuse material
• Terrorist Content
• Revenge or Extreme Pornography
• Threats to Kill

This act requires this kind of content to be proactively targeted and removed.

For adults (including children by proxy), harmful content related to: suicide, self-harm and abuse targeted at protected characteristics under the Equality Act (2010) such as age, sex or race.

Cyber-Flashing and Taking/Sharing of Explicit Images

Sites which include any pornographic content will now require age verification. 

Sending unsolicited (explicit or nude) is now an illegal act. It is also illegal to share explicit images that you have been sent or you have sent. 

In order to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM) Ofcom have been empowered to order a messaging service (e.g. WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram messages or Messenger) to use 'accredited technology' to look for and take down such content. Social Media owners must give access to your data/messages to authorities if you are suspected of being involved with CSAM. 

How Social Media Content Posting Can Violate The Race Relations Act

Social media services like Instagram that despite this act, content which is racially discriminatory is still commonplace amongst some algorithms due to poor regulation by Instagram. Whilst some of these explicit posts are removed, most slip through the cracks and are accessible to anyone without the need for age verification. The mass destruction of these posts normalizing and desensitizing the (racist stereotype) content which creates more of it and can affect how people view the world following it (Packard 1979 Hypodermic Syringe theory).

Regulatory Bodies & Social Media

• IPSO - Can monitor content generated by magazine publishers or news agencies

• ASA - Can monitor adverts and advertising content

• Ofcom - Can monitor all social media content and hold SM companies (e.g. WhatsApp) to account since Jan 2024

• BBFC - Can monitor and classify film content

Self-Regulation

Individuals with social media accounts often have to agree to terms and conditions (T&C's) of employment regarding social media. The main point is that employees should exercise self-regulation to avoid causing any danger to their employer's reputation/image. 

The idea of self-regulation is that individuals and their organisations make choices about what to publish as a prosumer on social media. This is how social media reflects the ethical and moral identity of the organisation. 

Twitter to X

Upon Elon Musk's purchase of the social media app 'Twitter' he rebranded the site as the 'return to free speech' which allows extremist political ideologies and accounts which before would be banned from the site such as Donald Trump. The effect this has is that users with extremist viewpoints are now free to spread hate speech which challenge the pre-existing acts (e.g. Race Relations or Equality Act). Trump, as an example, has organized and publicized/advertised 'Trump Force 47' with the goal to 'defeat Kamala Harris and the far-left liberal democrats'. 

QQ & Weibo (Chinese State Media)

QQ: This is a chat/discussion centric social media, created in China in 1999, akin to WhatsApp, Snapchat & Discord: this allows users to message or call each other individually or in a group chat; similarly to Discord, these groups can be related around a certain subject or media (e.g. popularly Genshin Impact). Users can then post images, videos, customize their avatar & UI.

Weibo: Created in 2009, Weibo functions similarly to Twitter, allowing users to post text, images and videos for people to comment on and read. Weibo is also a paid service, allowing users too subscribe to a VIP account; this likely increases their social credit.

Western Social Media

Instagram: This site allows users to: DM one another, post images & videos with short descriptions, post short stories (short videos and images which are posted temporarily), share notes/music (temporary) which other users can comment on and share

Twitter/X: This site allows users to: DM one another, post images & videos and extensive pieces of text which other users can comment on and share.

Facebook: This site allows users to: DM one another, post images & videos, extensive pieces of text which other users can comment on and share. Facebook also contains the Facebook Marketplace where users can sell and buy second-hand products, similarly to eBay.

Snapchat: This site allows users to: create a personalized avatar, create group chats with one or more people, talk to an in-built AI, post stories and share images & videos.

Cultural Control & Preservation

Cultural Preservation: The act of ensuring that a culture is not removed or taken from prominence by a government or national body. Various developed countries shave enacted this to keep elements of their culture present. Examples could include New Zealand preserving the Māori culture or Japan's preservation of their ancient culture rather than subsuming it by their modern culture.

Cultural constraints Social Media Managers must be aware of when promoting products to foreign markets

• Social Media markets need to be wary of what representations they can include when promoting their products such as LGBT+ representation which is banned in Chinese markets
• Gambling or tobacco cannot be represented in countries like China or Cambodia