Write a short essay explaining how prevalent cyber-bullying is in social network

Question

Write a short essay explaining how prevalent cyber-bullying is in social networks and whether you agree that it is something that should be tolerated in order to protect the openness of social communities. Describe what policies exist for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to combat these situations. What other potential abuses exist in social networks due to their nature and use? What, if anything, can be done to prevent these abuses? Be sure to support your positions with references and to explain how the statistics provided are relevant to this week's discussion.

Explanation / Answer

Cyberbullying is widely prevalent in social networks as per data reported1 wherein more than 50% of teens have reported to have bullied in some form or another. The maximum number of reported incidents are in Facebook where about 84% of victims have reported while for other social media sites, the level of reporting is quite low (around 10%-20%). Cyberbullying is very harmful for the victim and typically occurs via sending online threats or spreading false rumor online. It has a negative impact on the social interaction for the victim and also on their self-confidence. Thus as per my opinion, there should be some sort of regulation and censorship by the platform to remove and filter potential messages which constitute bullying.

For all the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter & Youtube, there exist a mechanism wherein these messages or posts can be reported to be inappropriate and on subsequent review, they would be taken down and removed from online space by the platform.

Due to the very nature of social networks, other form of abuses such as blackmailing or threatening to post indecent pictures or morphed pictures are quite common. There is also a possibility of creating and propagating false news on social media to defame a public personality. As per research2 about 62% of citizens get news on their social media feed and fake news tend to be more shared and hence propagate faster.

A clear consequence of above is that to preserve the functioning of the society and to prevent anarchy, it is essential to filter and ascertain its genuinely before circulation. This could be done through prudent consumption by the citizens as well as employing artificial and human intelligence by platforms to censor the news articles to an extent without being influenced by propaganda.

Source:

1. https://www.statisticbrain.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/

2. Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election (No. w23089). National Bureau of Economic Research.

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