SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULD BE REGULATED

ABSTRACT

As social media becomes a heavy influence in our online presence, certain elements need to be policed, as laws can still be broken. This is an insight into if social media, more specifically social networking sites, can be regulated to avoid recent spates of ‘trolling’ or whether it only serves to strip people of freedom to speech.

INTRODUCTION

Social media has now become a part of our modern day society and has a huge impact on our lives on a daily basis. Social media is the use of web and mobile-based technology to support interactive content. This content tends to be user generated and then might be promoted by other users to a new outlet or audience. Social Networking is a great
Trolling can be seen as opinions expressed very bluntly or using language that not everyone might like, but this is also a person’s right to freedom of speech, a right threatened by recent social media prosecutions in the UK [8]. The current malicious communications act being used to prosecute some is far from clear [9], with the term 'grossly offensive, obscene, indecent or menacing' [2] being very subjective and varying in meaning. These are terms that neglect to be explained by UK courts, making you wonder what can actually be posted without it being considered a criminal act. Paul Cambers was convicted under the Communications Act [10], for a message that was intended to be a joke. It took 3 appeals over 2 years just to overturn the conviction, down to the misinterpretation of current laws. The ITU recently brought together countries to discuss regulations on the Internet (WCIT-12)[11] and this has shown every country has a different agenda for regulation. However, the ITU has stated that it is trying to promote freedom of speech. CONCLUSION Trolling in it’s extreme form, can be one that causes distress and trauma for the affected people and offers the case of whether networking sites should have more responsibility for the content they provide. Taking responsibility could be seen as actions networking sites set to control abuse but still maintaining privacy and users’