Social Media Violence

The concept behind social media seems harmless. It offers young people opportunities to stay connected with friends and family while meeting new friends, even from other cultures. It also provides a forum to share accomplishments, ideas, and information. 

Despite these potential benefits, social media has a dark side. Social media has been used to both plan and display acts of violence. Social media violence statistics correspond increasingly to mass shootings in the United States and large-scale violence throughout the world.

For example:

• Russia used Twitter to provoke the slaughter of the White Helmets, a major humanitarian group in Syria.
• The military in Myanmar used Facebook to launch a genocide.
• Radical groups like ISIS have long used social media to spread extremist views, recruit members, target victims, publish manifestos, and coordinate attacks.

Even individuals who don’t plan to use social media for violent purposes find themselves caught up in violence. That’s because most platforms profit primarily from advertising revenue, so increased user activity equals higher profits. Therefore, social media platforms use algorithms that take advantage of the most vulnerable aspects of human nature to attract users and keep them on their platforms for as long as possible. 

According to Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, social media platforms determine what content to display on a user’s newsfeed based on the type of content the user has liked, shared, or commented on in the past. Violent, inciting, and anger-provoking content performs well on these metrics, resulting in violent content being displayed more often than benign content.

Repeated exposure to violence in media is widely known to have a desensitizing effect on children and youth. The dynamics of interacting on social media can lead users to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t consider in offline interactions. Some will behave in an out-of-character, openly hostile manner while others may overshare. 

This is known as the online disinhibition effect, where inhibitions are lowered because online interactions offer anonymity, invisibility, and feelings of reduced accountability. This can lead to cyberbullying and intense arguments that end in violent face-to-face confrontations.

Minorities and other marginalized groups experience the highest degree of social media violence, much of which results in real-life consequences.

Women and teenage girls fall prey to numerous forms of online sexual violence on a daily basis, including cyberstalking, threats, videos depicting rape, and the distribution of sexual images without consent. 

Women of color who work in publicly visible positions experience more online sexual harassment than their white counterparts and social media platforms have done little to protect them, even when issues are reported. 

Members of the LGBTQ+ community receive more social media abuse than any other group, with as many as 64 percent of their online community experiencing hate speech and harassment on social media. 

In 2019, a professor from the University of Oklahoma posted a series of videos on TikTok detailing his analyses of white supremacy and systemic injustice. He was immediately flooded with hateful racist comments. The professor has received death threats, his wife has been harassed online, and even his children’s names have been brought up in online threats.

The Black Lives Matter co-founder and other Black women have experienced similar abuse. A study from Amnesty International and Element AI that measured violence against women on Twitter showed that “Black women were disproportionately targeted, being 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets.”

Despite claims by social media platforms that they don’t tolerate racism, their algorithms reveal the opposite. The purveyors of violence find social media an easy outlet to find like-minded individuals and constantly harass their victims. 

Social media provides an additional weapon for domestic abusers to publicly humiliate their victims through tactics such as revenge pornography, disparaging public comments, cyberstalking, harassinment, and exploiting them through sex trafficking. This can damage a victim’s reputation and impair their ability to obtain or keep employment. 

Human trafficking – the exploitation of human beings for labor or sexual purposes – frequently begins on social media websites because that’s where children, teens, and young adults can be found.. Over half of all online recruiting occurs through Facebook. Facebook is aware of its role but has yet to take meaningful action.

Prior to internet technology, white supremacists and other extremists were on the fringes of society. The popularity and ease of using social media have made it easy for extremists to find each other and build networks. 

School shootings are on the rise, and social media violence corresponds with the increased coverage and video footage these shootings receive on social media networks. Sensationalizing school shootings in this manner can inspire copycats and spur more incidents. The desensitization to violence and lack of empathy that results from repeated exposure to this type of footage could fuel more of these shootings.

Social media platforms endanger the public with their pro-violence, discriminatory algorithms, which prioritize profits over public safety. If you or your child has been threatened, harassed, or physically attacked in a social media interaction, The Social Media Victims Law Center can help you hold these companies accountable. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.