Monitoring Social Media Platforms
Discussing hate speech on social media platforms is always a touchy subject. Numerous questions arise about why certain social media platforms completely ban and monitor hate speech across their respective platforms while others not as much. The issue with this is the answer is not as simple as it seems. Social media platforms such as Reddit and Twitter have created its own mini universe where people around the word can connect as well as speak their voice. These platforms, especially Twitter, have also become a place of news where current time updates about weather, sports, and celebrities can be seen through the app instantly. Platforms such as these has given people around the world a voice that they had not had before. The ability to connect people based on interests, religious beliefs, and others has created communities around the world. But with open platforms, people who believe in hate among gender, race, and religious beliefs have been given the ability to express their hateful voices just the same as anyone else. The issue is these media platforms aren’t just social media but businesses. Money is the main driver throughout all businesses which can create problematic circumstances especially with hate speech on open media platforms.
After reading “Twitter and White Supremacy, A Love Story” by Jessie Daniels, the distinction between business and suppressing voices of hate has become clearer. Daniels concepts among the article express clear vision that “white supremacists love Twitter because it loves them back” (Jessie Daniels). Many of her points and observations about the relationship between Twitter and white supremacy revolve around the concept that Twitter is a business. Twitter was not created to be a platform full of hate speech, but people have exploited Twitters’ open platform system to take advantage and be able to spread their hate speech across the platform without revolt from Twitter. In the article she states, “Twitter’s decision to prioritize driving traffic and its investors’ returns of everything else” (Jessie Daniels). After reading this, I decided to look up (The Twitter Rules) which outlines the rules Twitter has put into place to “ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely” (Twitter).
After reading over these rules, I noticed that a majority of the rules are mostly based around promoting physical acts of violence rather than hate speech. I would assume the reasoning behind many of the rules are based upon first amendment rights in which incitement and promoting physical acts of violence or harm are not protected by the first amendment. Although hate speech is knowingly wrong and hurtful, it is protected by the first amendment. With this in mind, Twitter has the ability to allow these comments to be public as it is their decision. Going back to the main points Jessie Daniels had to offer, it becomes clearer that Twitter has their own business strategies behind allowing these hate comments and groups. Numerous assumptions can be made about why Twitter decides to not take more progressive action with ridding the platform of hate speech. After reading over these articles, I can only assume money and keeping the business “strong” is the deciding factor among this. With Musk taking the company over recently and making Twitter a privately owned company, it is unknown how far hate speech will be able to progress over the years or with hope they can help rid the social media platform of hate speech.
Twitter isn’t the only media platform that has hate speech occurring throughout the platform. Its’ purely the best example of showing the relationship between hate speech and business as Twitter is one of the largest social media platforms in the world. This hate speech is occurring among many social media platforms and the ability to find this hate speech has continued to become more and more accessible. With the concept of keeping money flowing in through media platforms as well as other initiatives taken by these companies, is there a future coming where social media platforms become much stricter on their hate speech policies?
