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| Children on smartphones and tablets (Image: The Independent) |
I think I can speak on behalf of many of us by saying we have a funny relationship with social media. On a personal level, I find myself getting highly annoyed by the amount of finger pointing and malice users aim towards fellow strangers. I badger about this more often than not - but in reality, social media is largely a major force for good.
The Web 2.0 revolution has been with us for nearly 20 years now and its impact is arguably greater than any other technological advancement. By the end of this year, there looks set to be 2.77 billion social media users in the world. These sites possess a golden opportunity for individuals and organisations to reach out to a wide audience, boosting their profiles and enhancing reputations.
And of course we cannot limit social media to people mingling on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We can find love, review restaurants and hotels, blog about our interests, comment on web forums, teleconference our doctors and online chat with banks. All of these have a significant social element and are part of our daily lives, a continuing trend for many generations to come.
With this revolution comes responsibility. These websites are now major organisations themselves, where people can be shareholders of. They have to pay taxes and hire staff like any other company. They have reputations to enhance and maintain themselves. That said, they do often find themselves in a pickle.
The scrutiny of these webpages have been lurking behind the bushes from the very start of their existence. Sceptics were quick to raise their concerns over security and that we could turn into anti-social robots because we'd be addicted to them. These issues still remain but others are coming out of the woods, biting these sites hard. So hard in fact that the British government is stepping in robustly, threatening possible sanctions unless Facebook and the like pull their socks up.
The past few weeks alone has seen the likes of Instagram and Tinder try and respond to huge claims against them. In mid-January, we heard about the shocking story of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old girl who took her own life. Her father launched a big campaign against Instagram and Pinterest after investigations revealed Molly actively followed posts which showed how to harm yourself. Meanwhile, very recent reports showed adult dating sites, Tinder and Grindr, being easily accessed by children under 16 who are then exposed to horrific crimes including sexual exploitation.
Both stories I mention here are things you don't want to hear. However, the number of such cases are rising to levels nobody wants - and they shouldn't be ignored either. To me though, the debate we're seeing now is being completely misguided. Too often we witness social media companies solely blamed for these incidents. Yet, we never hear what the long-term solutions should be, so that the malicious posts in question are no longer readily available for the public to see.
The key fact in this debate is that Facebook and Instagram aren't telling teenagers to end their lives prematurely. At the same time, Tinder and Grindr aren't entirely responsible for the horrendous levels of child exploitation on their sites. Largely, it is down to the individual users who make the decision to create accounts and share such vile posts. And these sites have so many users, it is difficult to police each and every one of those who sign up, free of charge.
That said, these social media pages must put the finger on the pulse here. They have grown extremely quickly and mustn't underestimate that the posts shared on their platforms can be the difference between making and breaking them. And they must start treating their basic organisational structure like any other traditional company that hire thousands of employees. For example, Tesco can receive unwanted public attention because of a local shop assistant committing a crime. He or she would naturally receive an appropriate sanction, showing the retail giant is clamping down on bad behaviour. Instagram and the like need to start having the same mind-set and treat their users as staff. We users represent the sites we're members of and cannot downplay the notion our activities could impact our lives, as well as the sites'.
So what can social media pages do to combat the issues at hand? They have clear restrictions in terms of, say, age - but children find it so easy to lie about their date of birth. Is there any way for these sites to ask for ID of every user, old and new? Would it sound crazy to suggest Facebook and others ask for a user's DBS before registering, ensuring they're not a potential risk to others' lives? These may be seen as extreme measures but I'm sure most of us want to sign into platforms innocent from all the hardship we face that affect us physically and emotionally?
It will take a while for social media sites to really combat issues around child protection. Instagram has started to ban graphic self-harm images in light of what happened to Molly Russell, but this won't stop young people being in potential danger. What we can do is take action ourselves. If a post or a user doesn't look right, you can report it. Most of these social media platforms have hundreds-of-millions of users and they won't go through every post and approve each one - it is impossible. If they did this, it could take days until your post is made public while moderators would mull over millions on a daily basis. That won't work and could make matters worse. It's time social media companies are treated like any other company, and not be seen as the baddies killing and harming children.
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