Social media is not only an imperative socializing tool in the modern world, but it is also an equally revolutionary and integral piece of the 21st century civilization. With Facebook and MySpace leading the charge from the early days, we have come a long way from where we started and it is astonishing to see what has been achieved. However, as much as the positivity, innovation, and creativity have been spread on social media platforms, there is also proof of social media websites across the board being floored and paddled with negative comments, hate speech, and fanaticism.
As expected, all social media platforms started to crack down on the negativity projecting on their applications with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram leading the charge as the top social media platforms. An audit in the year 2020 showed that around 71% of all flagged content was deleted by firms ensuring that the users were being heard and negativity was being tackled down on all sides. However, the most recent audit of the European Commission that was tracked by Politico showed that the percentage has decreased and so has the determination of these websites to tackle down the problems. The percentage saw a steep fall of 8.5% reaching a 62.5% deletion rate of posts that directly and indirectly targeted sectors of society with misogynistic or homophobic content and comments.
This and many similar statistics have become the driving force for the European Union to amend and edit the Digital Services Act calling for all social media platforms and online businesses to adhere to a new rule of policies that protects the privacy of its users and allows for increased accessibility to the user only. This act also calls to tackle the ever increasing illegal content across the internet including child pornography, hate speech, extremism, and many more with the intent to cement laws and enforcing them with a firm hand.
However, with recent developments in regards to the Haugen v Facebook case, the intents of these social media applications have been put into question and as a result, the annual auditing of these firms management towards hate speech was initiated, and not surprisingly the results backed the lackluster attitude towards negativity bringing Facebook all the more seriously into the crosshairs.
Furthermore, the number that had increased over the course of the years to 71% saw a fall for the first time and not only that, analytics indicate that hate speech in other languages continue to walk on these platforms scotch free and that is something that all social media platforms should look into first hand in solving.
H/T: Politico.
Read next: Google Ranks Over Every Other Tech Company In A Major Trust Survey
As expected, all social media platforms started to crack down on the negativity projecting on their applications with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram leading the charge as the top social media platforms. An audit in the year 2020 showed that around 71% of all flagged content was deleted by firms ensuring that the users were being heard and negativity was being tackled down on all sides. However, the most recent audit of the European Commission that was tracked by Politico showed that the percentage has decreased and so has the determination of these websites to tackle down the problems. The percentage saw a steep fall of 8.5% reaching a 62.5% deletion rate of posts that directly and indirectly targeted sectors of society with misogynistic or homophobic content and comments.
This and many similar statistics have become the driving force for the European Union to amend and edit the Digital Services Act calling for all social media platforms and online businesses to adhere to a new rule of policies that protects the privacy of its users and allows for increased accessibility to the user only. This act also calls to tackle the ever increasing illegal content across the internet including child pornography, hate speech, extremism, and many more with the intent to cement laws and enforcing them with a firm hand.
However, with recent developments in regards to the Haugen v Facebook case, the intents of these social media applications have been put into question and as a result, the annual auditing of these firms management towards hate speech was initiated, and not surprisingly the results backed the lackluster attitude towards negativity bringing Facebook all the more seriously into the crosshairs.
Furthermore, the number that had increased over the course of the years to 71% saw a fall for the first time and not only that, analytics indicate that hate speech in other languages continue to walk on these platforms scotch free and that is something that all social media platforms should look into first hand in solving.
H/T: Politico.
Read next: Google Ranks Over Every Other Tech Company In A Major Trust Survey