Social Media Giants Attempt to fix Hate Speech

Social Media giants such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter & Instagram all have responsibilities to keep Social Media a safe place for the millions of users it serves. This is imperative and it has gotten out of hand. The Social giants have thus agreed on first steps to curb harmful content online, major advertisers have recently announced the following boycotts of social media platforms accused of tolerating hate speech, they are hitting them were it hurts.

Under this new deal, announced by the WFA a common definition would be thus adopted for numerous forms of extreme and harmful content such as hate speech and bullying, and also social media platforms would implement a sequential based reporting standards. This all comes before the US elections, and is greatly needed to quell the hate speech on social media.

For months numerous advertisers have boycotted Facebook & Twitter in the wake of anti-racism demonstrations that have followed the death of George Floyd, an American who was fatally killed by police.

Major Advertisers have been complaining for years that social media publishers do very little to prevent ads from appearing alongside hate speech, fake news, and other hate filled content. Big tech companies are fighting back and have also tried to avoid becoming caught in the regulation cross hairs of congress.

Major social media platforms has thus agreed to have some practices reviewed by external auditors and to give their advertisers more control on what content is provided by their ads.

Carolyn Everson, who is Facebook’s vice president for Global Marketing Solutions, stated that the agreement “has aligned the industry on the brand safety floor and suitability framework, giving us all a unified language to move forward on the fight against hate online.”

This is the beginning however it may come down to regulation and oversight by US Congress. For now Social giants are governing themselves and it’s becoming a hate filled fiasco–with no end in sight. Who will step up, will it be the US Congress or will it be the Social Media beast, only time will tell…