A ringtone, a vibration and then the screen turns on. ‘You have 10 unread messages on Facebook.’ This seems to be an every day life procedure for most people. Receiving messages on the smartphone and have a quick look on social media if something new has happened. Social media in particular has become a space for public conversations where everybody is allowed to create a profile and share everything he or she wants. In other words it has revolutionised how people connect and socialise as human beings. But this close connection between people and their network society has its risks. In 2023, people checked their smartphone over 58 times each day on average which has led to an average screentime of over 3 hours per day in Ireland.
However, the screentime and potential addiction to social media is not a key issue. Users are also affected by what is reported on digital media platforms. Nowadays information is not equal information. There are bunches of fake news on the platforms of which the algorithm is not able to detect. The consequence: A tank out of disinformation. “Disinformation includes media manipulation, polarization and its impact on democratic institutions”, determines Carlos Diaz Ruiz, Assistant professor of Marketing at the Hanken School of Economics. That means that social media platforms enable profit from disinformation as well. “Previous research on media studies identified the existence of financial incentives behind the spread of disinformation”, Diaz Ruiz says.
The spread of fake news and the corruption of the public discourse endangers democracy in a concerning way. The fact that fake news are often pretend to be factually correct and their recipients only have a limited attention often results in misinterpretations of the news and wrong perceptions of what is true and false. To end up the high level of disinformation and fake news, Nick Richardson from the department of journalism at the LaTrobe University in Australia requires journalists in a comment to be better educated to be able to overturn disinformation. The answer to fake news would be good journalism. But he also points out that “it is a hard task to convince people you fulfil a vital democratic function when so many doubt what you tell them.”
Nevertheless, restrictions for digital media platforms and influencers are also very low until today. The fact that the platforms make influencers competing for views and likes ends up in a never ending spiral between content, disinformation and gaining money. For the users this kind of trick cannot be seen directly. The combination of algorithms and cookies allow the platforms to personalize the content by using personal data to learn what content triggers the user’s engagement. “As influencers and digital marketers work with engagement metrics, they learn that controversial and emotional responses are highly engaging and tend to go viral. As a result, clickbait and polarizing content thrives on digital platforms”, states Carlos Diaz Ruiz in his article by referring to the Journal of Marketing.
Ending up the freedom of law for social media companies is the goal of many journalists and politicians for years now. “Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law”, concludes the UK Culture, Media and Sport Committee in their report.
However there are still cases in law where plaintiffs lost their trial against social media companies. In 2017 for example, there was an Ugandan lawyer, Muwema, who sued Facebook Ireland after a user had posted defamatory statements. But a representative of Facebook, the defendant, said that Facebook was not the publisher, it was a user. Facebook pleaded for ‘innocent publication’ and said it was not their fault. If this might sound a bit too easy to get out of a defamation trial, the answer is: it is that easy. Because of the lack of efficiency in the Irish law, the court found in favour of Facebook.
On the one hand the case definitely shows that everyone still has the right to express freely their opinions, no matter if it is in person or online which is good and important to some extent. But is it fair to attach greater restrictions on traditional media such as radio and broadcasting stations if social media is the bigger player today?
Some people might say yes, regarding the fact that there are, among restrictions and laws, also moral values and obligations to regulate the discourse on social media to ensure that there are less fake news and hate speech, including defamatory statements. Social media companies have an obligation to ensure that there is a fact based and peaceful discourse on their website which contributes to the democracy.
In connection, authors in the journal of information technology & politics found out that there are efforts by platforms such as Facebook or Twitter to ‘remove objectionable content’. From their point of view the companies understand the problem and try to ban ‘bad actors’ to improve the situation and to support a constructive discourse.
On the other hand the companies still require the politics to act in terms of regulations on social media. Surprisingly, thinking about the fact that regulations might cause a restricted use of their website and therefore a possible minimisation of advertisements. Nonetheless, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview a few years ago that he would be open to having Facebook regulated.
“I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated.”
Mark Zuckerberg
Ironically when he was asked about if and how the government should regulate them he responded: “Ads transparency regulation. That I would love to see.” For him that obviously means that internet platforms should be as transparent as other mediums.
Being transparent and ending up disinformation and the event of fake news seem to be an ambitious approach and a useful step to contribute to the democracy and to maximise public knowledge as well. But we should not forget the fact that Facebook in particular tends to be a monopoly regarding that the three biggest social media companies are owned by them. This monopolization can cause unequal access to information and the loss as a forum for freedom of speech.
In terms of news media there is an example of how market oriented models influence and affect their recipients knowledge. A study in the European journal of communication shows the relation between the model in which news media is presented and how the report affects what is known by the audience. Therefore the authors analysed different broadcast models: a public service model and a market model which can be found in the USA. The study revealed that that recipients of the market model were highly uninformed about international public affairs and domestic hard news as well. In contrast to that a state’s regulated public service model gives more attention to all sections of the society and international news. The disparity between those two models is that public service broadcasters have to constantly serve society and to verify their actions in order to justify their funding while market oriented mediums are under pressure to prioritise high-spending audiences to maximise the advertising. This can result in low income groups receiving less attention as well as important current affairs, no matter if it is nationally or internationally.
Transferred to online media platforms this study would mean that there should be social media platforms that are funded by the public and/or the state and that are not dependent on advertisements and the rise of disinformation in order to attach the user’s attention and gain money and make sure that the users will stay on their website as long as possible. This approach could end up hate speech as well, of which disinformation and misunderstanding are the origins.
While talking about social media companies behaving like ‘digital gangsters’ and with regard to hateful comments and posts on their websites it is also necessary to mention that lots of published analysis’ contain significant gaps in their studies. Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández and Johan Farkas for example, from the Queensland University of Technology and the Malmö University, critically reviewed studies which aim to find out, among other things, a correlation between a specific social media website and the event of hate speech and disinformation. In their review the authors found out that there is a general lack of geographical and platform diversity. They say that “only a minority of scholars are relying on critical approaches to the study of racism and social media”. As a consequence these assumption would mean that the data about the amount and correlations of disinformation, fake news and hate speech is distorted and inconclusive.
But to be fair the challenge to end up and fight against it is neither only up to scholars nor it is only up to the companies. Besides the fact that even in 2021, during the covid pandemic, the BBC investigated that hate speech rose over 20%, to believe that this phenomenon is of structural nature of the companies themselves is not the whole truth. It also comes from the users who contribute to a harmful discourse. It seems to be a problem that is grounded in the society. To just delete content with hate speech and disinformation, detected by an algorithm, will not solve the actual problem. Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández and Johan Farka say in their article that “there is a risk of conceptualising racism on social media as something external to platforms that can be simply fought through technical fixes such as machine learning”.
However, the use of machines and AI tools on digital media platforms has also its advantages. While traditional media such as radio and television do not have the ability to interact with their audience, social media websites and artificial intelligences in particular can do it. Chatbots for example can interact with users and can solve inquiries and complaints very quickly. That would also mean that reported fake news could be removed with low effort and in a short time. To prevent that inappropriate comments and posts have to be reported, AI is also able to detect ‘dangerous’ content. Facebook for example says in their policies: “We remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety. We also try to consider the language and context in order to distinguish casual statements from content that constitutes a credible threat to public or personal safety.” Contrarily Redouane Benabdelouahed and Chouaib Dakouan said in the Expert journal of marketing that “artificial intelligence is not aware of human emotions” and as a consequence a machine will not be able to interpret the same content in the same way than the user does. So we might find ourselves then in a spiral of disinformation, detection and misinterpretation.
While talking about disinformation, its monetizing and the event of fake news and hate speech it is clear that social media platforms need restrictions and limitations even though they cannot only be written down in the law. Sometimes it is important to act in the interest of morality and therefore to limit the own actions. The users as well as the platforms. A well developed social media company can contribute a lot to a healthy discourse and the exchange of opinions in general is good for democracies. However, as mentioned before, there are lots of dangers and challenges for the democracy on social media but there are also benefits. And if disinformation and a distorted discourse has been normalized on social media over the past years the question is still: who is responsible for that? Only social media companies? Or do we all as users need to educate ourselves as well in terms of the awareness for disinformation and its effects?
