A new year is upon us. While we’ve made some progress in reducing cyberbullying, online hate, and other forms of abuse and toxicity, I think we can do better. Social media companies are often seen (and vilified) as accomplices to the harassment and victimization that happens on their platforms, and – admittedly – are an easy target for us to scapegoat. To be sure, they do share some of the blame and are learning as they (and we) go when it comes to what online safety policies and practices work the best.
Here are some specific Calls to Action for social media companies in 2020:
1. Perfect the feedback loop. Social media companies have to – at all costs – keep their users from being victimized a second time because they failed to respond to a report of abuse or harm. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are doing a good job here, but should close the feedback loop more quickly. Other companies are not doing a good job. Responsiveness matters the most.
2. Be transparent and fair about takedown decisions. We need to understand (and build an evolving body of knowledge) on what types of posts and user-generated content violate the rules, and what do not. Otherwise, the decision-making seems arbitrary and capricious – which is not a good look for social media companies who already have a reputation for prioritizing profit-making over user safety.
3. Devote more resources to social science solutions instead of computer science solutions. Though, today most of the solutions came from Computer Sciences, we still need a lot more focus on identifying and understanding what factors escalate (and de-escalate) abuse and toxicity online. Some incipient work has been done in this area but so much more is required.
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