[Football] A sad story come good…

[Nobby Cybergoat]

It all boils down to social media companies not doing enough to regulate users doesn't it.

For me, it should be nigh impossible to be virtually anonymous. Also when you report a post that is clearly abusive in some way that user should be banned, not suspended or that post deleted. The times I've reported racism, homophobia, even animal cruelty that's been deemed not to go against site rules is infuriating.

Saying that, we should all be more proactive in reporting unacceptable posts instead of just scrolling past it.

This to me is the only way forward. The social media company invests more in having people check reported messaging then issuing immediate not appealable bans. There will probably be some unfairness with the bans, but that's a small price to pay.

Of course, people will then just open new accounts and go on to do the same, but then they will get banned and eventually an ever larger percentage will realise it's not worth the hassle and those on the margins of giving abuse will find themselves more isolated and generally it will have a civilising effect.

Reducing anonymity and using the criminal law is desirable and should be done as well, but this is harder to achieve.

The low hanging fruit is just to blanket ban any poster saying anything remotely abusive

 

[beorhthelm]

people causually posting on social media are not anonymous, they are easily identified if reported and authorities follow up. so its a matter of policing (in broad sense). summary banning is one way to get rid of the low hanging, though needs balance against malicious false reporting, so that needs labour intensive review. be very careful what you ask for, if some suggestions were to make it to law, places like this forum would probably have to shutdown to save onerous regulation.

bottomline is this is not really a social media issue, its a social problem. the platform merely gives people an audible voice. otherwise they'll say the same in private, or in their local pubs, workplace, playgrounds etc. and wider public just dont hear them.