Regulation, Good Practice and Censorship

Regulation, Good Practice and Censorship

Social media: How do other governments regulate it? - Article Notes

Self Governance 

• YouTube transparency report - gives data on its removals of inappropriate content
• 8.8 million videos were taken down between July and September 2019 - 93% automatically removed with machines, and 2/3 of those not receiving a single view
• Removed 3.3 million channels and 517 million comments
• YouTube employs 10,000 to monitor and remove content
• Facebook has more that 35,000 people working on safety and security - Took action on 30.3 million pieces of content - 98.4% found before anyone flagged it
• Illegal content or extremest material, the person who posted it is more at risk than the company - That may change

China

• Sites such as Google, Twitter and WhatsApp are blocked - Have their own services
• Restricted access to VPN that people used to bypass the blocks

Regulation

There is (currently) no standard regulation or regulatory body to monitor social media 

However, private businesses cannot break the Data ProtectionAct (by, for example, publishing clients’ personal details without permission)

Equally, hate speech is covered by law, and this applies to social media

Hate speech includes:

• Racism
• Homophobia
• Sexism
• Xenophobia
• Islamophobia
• Antisemitism

New as of June 2021

Applicable to social media, apps and advertisements 

In an efforts to combat beauty and appearance pressures, Norway’s new law mandates that social media influencers disclose when they’ve retouches or added a filter to a photo

Terrorist Attack

Increasingly, terrorist cells and individuals are uploading graphic content and sharing it via social media. This is taken down by the relevant organisation (such as Facebook or Twitter), who resent to ‘reported’ content that may be offensive

The issue, though, is the response time. For example ISIS beheadings, after being uploaded onto social media sites, were shared amongst users so rapidly that authorities were effectively unable to remove them. 

There also the issue of the ‘dark web’

Self Regulation

Whether professionally or privately, users are advised to comply with the law through self regulation.

This means they should have an awareness of what is, and what is not, illegal, and act accordingly

Relevant Regulatory Bodies

IPSO - can monitor online copy from news agencies and magazine industry but have no control over private individuals/businesses

ASA - can advise on online advertisements, as can Ofcom and BBFC

Online streaming and VoD ( Coupled with increasing piracy), however, make this problematic

Using Social Media at work

Employers are search for a few key items when researching candidates via social networking sites

• Information that supports their qualifications
• Professional online persona

More than half employers (54%) found content on social media that caused them not to hire a candidate 

• Information about them drinking or using drugs
• Candidate bad mouth last job or co-worker

The Internet in North Korea

• The use of smart phones and internet in North Korea is heavily monitored and censored
• People go to great risks getting their hands on illegal content thats not allowed in North Korea
• North Korea created their phone so that there is limited access to anything - all the apps they can use are ready loaded up on the phone - have heir own version of the ‘internet’ (intranet)
• Phones/Tablets take random screenshots of user activity
• Using any foreign internet/service thats not approved by the government is considered conspiracy and yo get the death penalty
• You can’t open any files on a North Korean phone that aren’t either signed by the government, or created by the user
• The phones monitor constantly - people would leave phones in empty rooms when talking bad about the government
• Kim Jong Un and former leaders names are made slightly bigger on web pages

Smuggling USBs and DVDs in Balloons

• A North Korea defector (escapee) sent hot air balloons of USBs and DVDs over the South Korea - North Korea border as an act of protest - stopped in 2004 when things got serious
• He escaped and his two uncles got executed based on crime of ‘association’
• Bribed the security guards with $5000 (100x the normal rate)

Normal citizens do not get access to the "internet". That privilege is left to a select

number in the country, known as elites, as well as some academics and scientists.

What they see is an internet that is so narrow and lacking in depth it resembles more an extravagant company intranet than the expansive global network those

outside the country know it to be.

Beyond the Kwangmyong intranet, some North

Koreans do have full, unfiltered internet access

However, it is believed this is restricted to just a few dozen families - most directly related to Kim Jong-un himself.

The Red Star operating system runs an adapted version of the Firefox browser, named Naenara, a title it shares with the country's online portal, which also has an English version,

Typical sites include news services - such as the Voice of Korea - and the official organ of the state, the Rodong Sinmun,

But anyone producing content for this "internet must be careful.

"The system they've set up is one that they can control and tear down if necessary," explains Mr Bruce.

The system is called Kwangmyong, and is

administered by the country's lone, state-run internet service provider.

According to Mr Bruce, it consists mainly of

"message boards, chat functions, and state sponsored media". Unsurprisingly, there's no sign of Twitter.

China

China has some strict firewalls to prevent potential subversion of its regime. Some internet searches are banned, and social media currently blocked include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Gmail, Youtube

China has its own social media platforms - perhaps the most widely-used and well-known is Weibo

What is Weibo used for?

• Microblogging social network
• Compared to Twitter or Facebook
• Hosts over 400 million business pages
• News outlets and non-chines speaking celebrities use it to reach out to their Chinese fan base
• Weibo influencer campaigns
• Weibo advertising
• Weibo lottery 
• Cross-promotion
• Organic growth

Bias and Ideology 

In Marxist thought, society is seen to resemble a pyramid. The ruling classes form only a small percentage of the population, and their position is therefore propped up bu the educated workers, who in turn are propped up by the working classes

Because there are so many people at the bottom of the stack, it’s important to keep them from revolting. This is really why the media exists, especially in terms of news, televisions, film, radio, the internet - its a distraction from the realities of existence

‘Gatekeepers’ control the flow of information from the ruling classes (the superstructure) to the proletariat (base structure). This creates the potential for bias. It exists in every society