Social media regulation can't keep up with the latest trends of harmful content

The emergence of social media has shaped much of the first two decades of the 21st century. For any individual who spent their childhood in this era, social media represents both a poison and a pleasure. More tellingly, our time spent on these platforms means we are highly aware of the dangers of these sites, usually through first or close second-hand experience. We’ve all had a friend who’s been sent inappropriate content, or received hateful messages.

Regardless of personal experience, the dangers related to social media use have become evident to those who haven’t been brought up as digital natives. The statistics show a clear story for anyone to see. Around one in five children aged 10 to 15 years in England and Wales experienced at least one type of online bullying behaviour.

Algorithms have only compounded the issue by broadening the amount of content users see beyond their real-life group of friends. The result is that users have an unprecedented stream of non-contextualised clips of stranger’s lives. Beyond the understandable self-esteem issues that constantly comparing yourself to others may create, this style of content increases opportunities for bullying and harmful content to spread as people can leave comments or messages without facing repercussions outside of social media. Parliament’s DCMS Select Committee found 62% of adult internet users and over 80% of children have had potentially harmful experiences online.

This level of harm online makes it clear that there is an urgent requirement for greater online safety measures. Yet, it is evident that online regulation faces two key challenges.

Firstly, politics has not caught up with social media developments. Despite having knowledge of the dangers related to social media, Members of Parliament have so much on their plates that their approach to legislation has typically been reactive instead of proactive. This is particularly problematic given the speed it takes to pass legislation related to online harms, with the Online Safety Bill itself having been six years in the making. The result is that social media content regulation will always lag behind online harms unless politicians change their approach.

The other key issue is that users will always try to find new ways to bypass implementation of regulation by social media companies. Sadly, users who wish to get around regulation consistently find ways of doing so. For example, on TikTok users have taken to using code words like ‘mascara’ (sex toy) and ‘unalived’ (suicide) to get around the AI content moderation. While many of these code words are not used out of malicious intent, it does indicate that social media companies need to be smarter with their content moderation if they wish to reduce harms on their sites.

Covid-19 Inquiry Webinar - Trafalgar Strategy and Trowers & Hamlins (18th January)

With the Covid-19 Public Inquiry underway, Trafalgar Strategy's Founder Giles Kenningham MBE and Director Tom Anelay spoke at a webinar on protecting reputation during public inquiries alongside our colleagues at Trowers & Hamlins. You can view the webinar here and if you would like to receive a free guide on communicating during public inquiries then do get in touch.

How should private sector businesses respond to workers on strike?

As we face another month of public sector strikes, with politicians and trade union bosses trading blows over who is to blame for the disruption, we are also seeing a growing trend of private sector workers going on strike. What are the key differences with the strikes? And how should businesses respond to striking workers?

November 2022 saw 423 days of work lost due to strike action in the private sector, a miniscule number when compared to the 417,000 days of work being lost in the public sector in October 2022. But it’s still an increase - there were no private sector strike days recorded between February 2020 and May 2022. With news that Amazon workers have staged their first ever UK walkout, and inflation and cost of living pressures continue to hit workers, the trend could be here to stay.

So how should businesses in the private sector deal with workers on strike? One of the biggest differences is that the employer is going to have to wholly own the communications response. Unlike with nurses or rail workers, there is not a Minister that can be put up for a broadcast round and pointed to as responsible for the disruption.

The employer is also going to have to own how the business operates. In some of the highest profile private sector strikes, pay is often not the only or even predominant issue. Amazon workers are using this strike to highlight the “severe” conditions they are working in, with managers tracking staff’s ‘idle’ time and loo breaks, criticising workers for not being productive enough. Similarly, Royal Mail workers went on strike over management trying to turn the newly privatised company into a “gig economy-style parcel courier, reliant on casual labour.”

At the end of the day, pay rises are likely to solve much of the disgruntlement employees face, but a sufficient pay rise will not always be the silver bullet private sector bosses are hoping for. Significant operational and cultural shifts may be necessary in order to assure employees that they are not attempting to cut corners and put profit above employee welfare. Unfortunately, cultural and operational changes do not happen overnight. They’re often expensive and you have to bring people with you.

Looking beyond pay to how a business treats their workers needs to form a key element of any private sector response. Yes, a recession may be coming, but the battle for talent is still very much alive and striking workers isn’t going to attract prospective employees. Every business facing striking workers will have its own challenges but winning back workers’ goodwill is about more than just short term disruption.