Social Media Marketing: May 2017

Web firms will also face penalties if they fail to do more to stop children accessing harmful content under proposed Tory reforms.

Social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, will be forced to wipe the records of young users before they turn 18 on request if Theresa May is re-elected prime minister.

The "right to innocence" measure is among a series of reforms to curb the dangers of the cyberworld in a new Conservative manifesto pledge.

It comes as the NHS was left reeling from a massive cyberattack.

Mrs May said: "Unlike a coalition of chaos and instability led by Jeremy Corbyn, a Conservative government led by me will get on with the job of making life in the United Kingdom even better.

"That means we are prepared to face up to the big long-term challenges facing this country.

"The internet has brought a wealth of opportunity, but also significant new risks which have evolved faster than society's response to them.

"We want social media companies to do more to help redress the balance and will take action to make sure they do.

"These measures will help make Britain the best place in the world to start and run a digital business, and the safest place in the world for people to be online.

Under the plans, social media firms will have to take action to stop search terms directing users to inappropriate sites.

It is hoped the move will stop children accidentally stumbling on porn, with some adult channels featuring x-rated videos that have titles which play on the names of well-known films and characters.

The measure would also include hate speech and other sites that could be harmful to youngsters.

Age restrictions on apps to stop young children accessing damaging content will also be expanded.

Responding to Mrs May's announcement, Liberal Democrat former Cabinet minister Alistair Carmichael said: "It is certainly bold of the Conservatives to boast how they can protect people on the internet the day after the NHS has been hacked with a loophole apparently built by the US Government.

"Government and technology companies must do more to find a real solution to problematic content online but having a government agency deciding what constitutes acceptable free speech isn't it.

"We need to be working with technology companies to address the problem of hate speech, not pretending it's an easy problem that can be solved with a press release."

Resource : http://news.sky.com/story/pm-wants-under-18s-right-to-delete-social-media-history-10875098

Was there a time when people regarded social media in a wholly positive light? It's hard to remember. The honeymoon's been over for a while. We still recognize the benefits of social media — after all, the majority of Americans use platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on a daily basis — but when we talk about these companies, it's usually not to laud them for bringing the world closer together.

Our conversations about social media often revolve around the problems that have come with it. There are the usual laments about how these applications have ruined our ability to focus and made us all unhappier. And then there are the more serious concerns: That social media can serve as a fertile recruiting ground for terrorist organizations. That it enables, and perhaps encourages, people to broadcast themselves committing heinous acts. That it allowed for the unbridled dissemination of fake news, which may or may not have impacted the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Here's a snapshot of the controversies that Facebook has encountered just within the past year:

In May 2016, news broke that Facebook employed human curators to decide which news stories would show up as trending topics, and that these curators frequently suppressed conservative news stories.

In September 2016, Facebook censored an iconic and historically important photograph of a naked child fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War.

In November 2016, Facebook was "embroiled in accusations that it helped spread misinformation and fake news stories that influenced how the American electorate voted."

In April 2017, a video of a 74-year-old man's murder was posted on Facebook; shortly afterwards, the killer made a video confession via Facebook Live.

Each controversy was followed by a public outcry for Facebook to do better. Each outcry led to Facebook quickly rolling out some sort of triage solution, such as its partnerships with third-party fact checkers to deal with fake news stories, or its recent hiring of 3,000 contract employees to screen violent videos. Each solution was derided as either a token, too-small step in the right direction, or as a misguided attempt to curtail free expression.

Is it possible that we expect too much from social media companies?

This isn't to say that Facebook shouldn't be held responsible for the increasingly large role it plays in disseminating the news. Nor is it to say that we, as news consumers, don't have the right to ask the tech giant to do better. But it's worth acknowledging that there may not be any obvious solutions or quick fixes to the problems that have emerged with our growing reliance on social media.

Pushing social media platforms to shut down terrorist-related accounts can help to curtail ISIS recruitment efforts. It can also deprive legitimate opposition groups in politically oppressive countries of a key communication tool.

Identifying a fake news story isn't always a straightforward endeavor, partly because "a clean database with a complete list of verified facts" does not — and cannot — exist.

The algorithms that Facebook and other social media platforms use to filter out offensive or obscene content are often criticized for lacking the nuance and common sense that human beings possess. But human curators, of course, bring their own biases and blind spots to the filtering process.

There may not be a way for any social media platform to get things right, especially since every one of us has a different idea of what "right" looks like. This doesn't let social media platforms off the hook; they have a responsibility to try to mitigate the problems they've created, and imperfect, "good enough" solutions are better than none at all.

But it's likely that our collective frustration with social media will never really go away. Perhaps the root of this frustration is that it amplifies the worst elements of human nature: our comfort in our own "filter bubbles," our tendency to disregard facts in favor of the stories we want to be true, our viciousness towards each other (and how access to an audience can encourage that viciousness).

I've been told that one day, sooner than most of us think, artificial intelligence will develop to the point that it will mimic, and then quickly surpass, human intuition. Perhaps AI will be up to the task of sifting through vast amounts of human communication and striking the right balance between free expression and truth, security and decency.

You know, if our robot overlords actually care about that sort of thing.

Lata Nott is executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute. Contact her via email at lnott@newseum.org. Follow her on Twitter at @LataNott.

Resource : http://www.meridianstar.com/opinion/columns/why-social-media-keeps-failing-us/article_82abf320-0e23-5482-98a7-a56779ac1319.html

Social Media Marketing

Tuesday 23 May 2017

Friday 12 May 2017

PM wants under-18s right to delete social media history

Why social media keeps failing us

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