A friend recently asked me to fill in a quick dissertation questionnaire about social media and general media self regulation. While filling in the questionnaire it got me thinking about self regulation and if more rules should be set in place for social media outlets.
When answering the questions like, does social media need to have guidelines in place I myself thought that at the moment they have the initial foundations of regulation. Sites such as Facebook, twitter and Instagram give the reader the ability to report any content they find displeasing or offensive and then it is looked into by their offices and dealt with accordingly. However there have been some cases recently in the UK where people have gotten into trouble for what they have said on social media sites. One case was where a young teen posted racially abusive comments online. This resulted in the teen being arrested by the police for their actions. This does open the question whether if a more regulated system was in place messages such as this could be prevented.
A suggestion for this would be for further actions to be made by the social media sites. The idea to not allow abusive or offensive words to be used on a post on their site would seem like a small step to combat bad behaviour. A big problem with this seems to be that people are unaware of the public stage their social media accounts can be viewed from. However I personally do believe that if you are going to use social networks you should be responsible enough to know the consequences of your actions. More action should be taken by social media sites to warn users of their content and publishing privacy to hopefully educate users to use social media to the best of its ability.
Social media is ever on the rise and being picked up by more and more people each day. When used correctly it can have very positive and profitable results, but used incorrectly it can have quite the opposite. I believe more responsibility should be given to the user to account for their own actions while at the same time not letting the freedom of speech be abused.
Shauna Hall's Blog 