Should Social Media Be Tightly Regulated

[steve_bank]

One of many occurrences. Should the government control the media?

Does the f1st Amendemnt apply to private media platforms?

A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it's part of a troubling increase in 'sextortion' cases. | CNN

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.

www.cnn.com

CNN —

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.


Within hours, the 17-year-old, straight-A student and Boy Scout had died by suicide.


“Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation,” his mother, Pauline Stuart, told CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting several colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school.


The online conversation quickly grew intimate, and then turned criminal.


The scammer – posing as a young girl – sent Ryan a nude photo and then asked Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photo of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan’s family and friends.

 

[zorq]

Blackmail and extortion are already illegal everywhere. Slander and libel are illegal in most places. Fraud is illegal. Human communication is already highly regulated by governments.

 

[ZiprHead]

^^^ This.

 

[steve_bank]

Something being illegal is one thing. Addressing a wide open venue for crime is another.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

One of many occurrences. Should the government control the media?

Does the f1st Amendemnt apply to private media platforms?

A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it's part of a troubling increase in 'sextortion' cases. | CNN

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.

www.cnn.com

CNN —

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.


Within hours, the 17-year-old, straight-A student and Boy Scout had died by suicide.


“Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation,” his mother, Pauline Stuart, told CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting several colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school.


The online conversation quickly grew intimate, and then turned criminal.


The scammer – posing as a young girl – sent Ryan a nude photo and then asked Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photo of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan’s family and friends.

Unfortunately, we are in a bit of a dilemma when it comes to trying to regulate social media. There are still some social outgroups in our society that need the privacy in order to feel comfortable reaching out to each other for support, but on the other hand, the same people can often be the victims of serious cybercrimes and other forms of terrorism. While I do think that there is a need to do something, then, I would not want to put that "something" in the hands of some FBI clodpoll, and while my relations with cops have never been especially negative, there is also only but so far that I trust cops, having grown up in a world where gay men and transgender women were frequently victims of police entrapment schemes in states where the sodomy laws were still in effect. I can never really trust police to have a sane sense of priorities because of that. With all due respect to the police, fuck the police.

I think that more ought to be done to educate youth about their rights in regard to cybercrime, how to avoid becoming victims of cybercrime, and how to protect themselves from cybercrime through open channels of communication with people they trust. If somebody sends you a weird-looking message that seems superficially friendly but oddly domineering for reasons you can't immediately pinpoint, then you should take a screenshot and send it to your closest comrades or a family member you trust (if not your parents, maybe an uncle, aunt, or trusted neighbor) to ask them their opinion before trusting the intentions of such a person, and even then, it is not a very good idea to get too deep with a new person unless your closest comrades are aware of what is going on. It's okay to have secrets, but when you start keeping secrets from your closest friends or from family members you otherwise trust, then that is a sign that you are being manipulated by someone that has been attempting to isolate you, and this is often a very bad sign. Furthermore, it is an extremely good idea to ask for the feedback of your friends or family (assuming you have a functional relationship with them) on how to respond to someone on a sensitive issue or any subject that engages strong emotions, and I have done this, myself.

If we are going to let social media be a large part of people's lives, then it would simply be lunatic to fail to educate people about the things they can do to keep themselves safe on the Internet and to protect their privacy. It is unrealistic to let such a powerful tool be a large part of people's existence without teaching them the means of keeping themselves out of danger.

There is nothing more dangerous than a good tool that nobody knows the right way to use.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something being illegal is one thing. Addressing a wide open venue for crime is another.

And how do you propose making it not useful for criminals while remaining of any value to others?

 

[bilby]

Something being illegal is one thing. Addressing a wide open venue for crime is another.

Social media is infrastructure. People use it for a plethora of things, (including but certainly not limited to) crime.

The Pacific Motorway offers a fast escape route across the state border that criminals have frequently exploited for their getaways. Should we close it for that reason? If bring used for crime is a justification for eliminating infrastructure, then we should close down social media and tear up the interstate highway network.

Or we could just investigate and prosecute fraud, abuse, and other crimes that happen to use this infrastructure, while leaving the infrastructure in place for the benefit of the law abiding majority.

 

[Patooka]

I'm not sure what we're meant to be discussing here. What exactly are we expecting the government to do?

 

[bilby]

I'm not sure what we're meant to be discussing here. What exactly are we expecting the government to do?

Tear up any Interstate highway that has been used by criminals.

Apparently.

 

[Gun Nut]

One of many occurrences. Should the government control the media?

Does the f1st Amendemnt apply to private media platforms?

A 17-year-old boy died by suicide hours after being scammed. The FBI says it's part of a troubling increase in 'sextortion' cases. | CNN

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.

www.cnn.com

CNN —

Ryan Last received a message on a school night in February from someone he believed to be a girl.


Within hours, the 17-year-old, straight-A student and Boy Scout had died by suicide.


“Somebody reached out to him pretending to be a girl, and they started a conversation,” his mother, Pauline Stuart, told CNN, fighting back tears as she described what happened to her son days after she and Ryan had finished visiting several colleges he was considering attending after graduating high school.


The online conversation quickly grew intimate, and then turned criminal.


The scammer – posing as a young girl – sent Ryan a nude photo and then asked Ryan to share an explicit image of himself in return. Immediately after Ryan shared an intimate photo of his own, the cybercriminal demanded $5,000, threatening to make the photo public and send it to Ryan’s family and friends.

There is nothing "private" about the "public" internet. It is precisely identical in every single way as there being nothing "private" about the public airwaves. These "broadcasting networks" are, and always have been, accountable for what they choose to broadcast. That their business model and technology allow for far more "contributors" than they are competent to appropriately self-regulate within these laws, is entirely their fucking problem to solve all on their own without an inch of legal room for "sorry, these protections for society hurt our potential profit".

 

[Gun Nut]

I'm not sure what we're meant to be discussing here. What exactly are we expecting the government to do?

Simply treat "Facebook" like ABC, NBC, CBS, and every other public broadcaster. The intricacies of making money this way while ensuring they stay within the law is their fucking problem.

 

[steve_bank]

Free speech is when you are on public property.

A store is aprivately owned public place but you do not have a right to campaogn in the store without permission.

Social media is a private busyness and they can regulate speech. Free speech does ot mean you can say whatever you like anywhere any time.

 

[steve_bank]

I'm not sure what we're meant to be discussing here. What exactly are we expecting the government to do?

That is the question s it not?

 

[ZiprHead]

Could someone explain exactly how the government could have stopped the situation in the OP?

 

[TV and credit cards]

Could someone explain exactly how the government could have stopped the situation in the OP?

Treat social media like the harmful substance it is.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Free speech is when you are on public property.

A store is aprivately owned public place but you do not have a right to campaogn in the store without permission.

Social media is a private busyness and they can regulate speech. Free speech does ot mean you can say whatever you like anywhere any time.

That depends on whether you choose to treat free speech as a legal technicality, which would make it ultimately meaningless, or as a pervasive cultural norm that guides how we think and act.

People that engage interrorism or harassment against people they disagree with are really acting antithetically to that cultural norm. That is a better argument.

 

[ZiprHead]

Could someone explain exactly how the government could have stopped the situation in the OP?

Treat social media like the harmful substance it is.

That's a pretty non-specific answer to "exactly".

 

[TomC]

Could someone explain exactly how the government could have stopped the situation in the OP?

Treat social media like the harmful substance it is.

That's a pretty non-specific answer to "exactly".

To me, this is the problem. There aren't any specific remedies that aren't nearly as bad or worse than the ill effects of social media itself. At least not that I know about.

The internet, including social media, isn't inherently good or bad. It's powerful. It amplifies human tendencies, both the good and the bad.

And it's overwhelmed many of our old cultural norms. Is Twitter a private space, or is it the modern town square? Does free speech extend to demanding an electronic megaphone? Does private communications become public domain when posted on the internet? How far does plausible deniability protect people who post flat out lies, for personal gain, to an audience of millions of selected people? It's extremely easy to use that excellent form of lying, the partial truth, on the internet.

We've already opened the Pandora's Box of digital media. Now what?
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

I think in some respects the user base of a platform ought have some control of the platform.

Could someone explain exactly how the government could have stopped the situation in the OP?

Treat social media like the harmful substance it is.

That's a pretty non-specific answer to "exactly".

To me, this is the problem. There aren't any specific remedies that aren't nearly as bad or worse than the ill effects of social media itself. At least not that I know about.

The internet, including social media, isn't inherently good or bad. It's powerful. It amplifies human tendencies, both the good and the bad.

And it's overwhelmed many of our old cultural norms. Is Twitter a private space, or is it the modern town square? Does free speech extend to demanding an electronic megaphone? Does private communications become public domain when posted on the internet? How far does plausible deniability protect people who post flat out lies, for personal gain, to an audience of millions of selected people? It's extremely easy to use that excellent form of lying, the partial truth, on the internet.

We've already opened the Pandora's Box of digital media. Now what?
Tom

I would say doing away with curation of content within followed content except explicitly as requested, by publicly listed and personally implemented curation model should do it.

The primary negative function of social media is in targeting and "curation" of content.

Essentially if we were to take away a company's ability to directly and invisibly mutate our media feeds around narratives, but left those feeds either raw or even allowed to subscribe to their own content curation models, the company would lose leverage over what bubbles and behaviors that their platform drives among the user base.

This at the very least would remove the central power over manipulation.

 

[bilby]

Free speech is when you are on public property.

A store is aprivately owned public place but you do not have a right to campaogn in the store without permission.

Social media is a private busyness and they can regulate speech. Free speech does ot mean you can say whatever you like anywhere any time.

Yes, they can.

So why would the government need to be involved?