EXAM ESSAY QUESTION PREP and CLASSWORK Upload to Classroom during class time on Friday 1st October period 4

Use the material below

Evaluate = judge or calculate the quality, importance, amount, or value of something

'Online harms' also include hate speech, racism, terrorism, gang culture, anonymous abuse, sale of opioids (amongst many examples) so you may feel more comfortable offering case studies relating to this material rather than those mentioned in The Times editorial.

Here are some that I have prepared for you, some of which we have already covered in class:

Online abuse of politicians

There are many sources of information on this topic, especially the harassment of female politicians. To sum up:

Women in politics face 'daily' abuse on social media, leading to fears for their safety, and the risk that women will stop standing for election

Women politicians are targeted disproportionally on social media according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace eg Kamala Harris (2020 U.S. vice presidential candidate) 3,000 an hour false claims on Twitter

One woman who has consistently received horrific attacks ever since she began her career as an MP in 1987 is Diane Abbott. Amnesty found almost half of abusive tweets targeted at women MPs in the run up to the 2017 general election were sent to Abbott.

Caroline Dinenage, MP for Gosport and minister for digital and culture: “It’s a very serious problem and not one that is subsiding. We have seen a worrying rise in the amount of online abuse, harassment and intimidation directed at those in public life. The low-level abuse is what prevents me, like many others, from sharing too much about our lives and experiences online. More importantly, it can deter future candidates from standing for office.”

On 16 June 2016, Jo Cox, the British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, W. Yorkshire. The judge said he had no doubt Mair murdered Cox to advance a political, racial, and ideological causes of violent white supremacism and exclusive nationalism most associated with Nazism and its modern forms. Cox's murder was also explicitly referenced in the social media posts of a man who was jailed for four months in April 2017 for making death threats towards the then-MP for Eastbourne Caroline Ansell of the Conservative party.Two months after the death of Cox, at least 25 MPs received identical death threats, including the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Bryant said the threats were "particularly disturbing ... [in] that a lot of these threats are to women. I think women MPs, gay MPs, ethnic minority MPs get the brunt of it."

Gang culture

Childnet International report on the dangers many young people face online from gangs. For most children, social media can be an essential part of life, and this is no different for those involved in gangs and youth violence. The way members of gangs portray themselves online may seem glamorous to some children, for example, if they share images of money, or expensive items of clothing or technology. The reality of being in a gang can be very different. There have been growing concerns about the role of social media in gang violence and child criminal exploitation. Through social media, children can be drawn into gangs from peer groups, street gangs and criminal networks.

Social media can be used to incite violence between gangs

Drill music can be shared online and is linked to gang violence

Racism

A report released by the Professional Footballers’ Association has provided one of the most in-depth analyses of social media abuse aimed at footballers. Footballer Bukayo Saka: at the end of the Euro 2020 final, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka missed England’s three penalties in the final shootout and were subjected to a spike of racist insults.

The Government's response here:

"The Government and football community need social media companies to use their full resources to stop this abuse and better protect players.

The draft Online Safety Bill was published in May. It will require online companies to tackle harmful abuse on their platforms - both by preventing abuse and removing any posts that are against their use policies. They will need to stop repeat offenders from opening new accounts and make it easier for the authorities to find people who set up anonymous accounts to abuse others. Racist abuse will be designated a priority harm in the legislation.

If they fail to live up to their responsibilities, social media firms will face very tough sanctions including fines of up to 10% global turnover and ultimately criminal liability for managers."

Online media - positives / a nuanced debate

Social media, used as originally intended, is a powerful tool to support society: Mark Zuckerberg "Our mission at Facebook is to connect the world."

At face value, this seems to carry out the
early optimistic predictions of Nicholas Negroponte in the mid 1990s: "We will socialise in digital neighbourhoods in which physical space will be irrelevant...the digital planet will look and feel like the head of a pin." His optimism was based on arguments such as democratisation (because no-one is in charge of the internet, it would be immune from the abuses of large-scale organisations, governments or powerful international companies.)

But in fact, media in general is dominated by conglomerates who own almost all media - The Big Six (National Amusements, Disney, TimeWarner, Comcast, NewsCorp, Sony. Added to this, there are concerns about social media companies - Facebook owns Instagram and What's App, achieving a monopoly on social networking. Facebook has been under increased regulatory scrutiny in the US since 2017, when news reports revealed that the political data firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested Facebook user data without consent in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election. FB was then fined for violating anti-privacy policies. Equally, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google have been accused of monopolistic practices, with the US's Department of Justice arguing for increased enforcement of antitrust legislation.

What is positive? Social media can be used to share news - 'citizen journalism'- especially valuable in countries where centralised censorship suppresses freedom of expression. For Dan Gillmor, author of We The Media, platforms like blogs, YouTube and social media have transformed journalism into a 'profoundly grassroots and more democratic structure'. He asserts that the line between consumer and producer has blurred. One problem, of course, is that without professional accountability (regulation in the form of IPSO, IMPRESS), fake news can be published and may attract as much attention as authentic journalism. Participatory culture allows everyone to be a producer - but the result includes YouTube cat videos and vlogs made by product-sponsored influencers.

Henry Jenkins can be described as a cyber optimist - he believes that digital technologies are hugely beneficial to both society and individual users. Jenkins perceives that the internet has the capacity to translate community-based discussions into political engagements. one example of this process in action is the # MeToo campaign that formed in response to Harvey Weinsteen allegations.

Other positive examples include how the internet creates purposeful communities like the online 'Nextdoor' app which unites local communities who share information, offer support, request assistance and exchange views. Equally, there have been a number of online campaigns that have set to create social and political change, using platforms such as Change.org. Awards such as the Shorty Awards now focus attention on campaigns and generate more public attention.