How Effective is the Attempt by the Law to Regulate Social Media - Case Study Example

How effective are the attempts by the law to regulate social media? s Submitted by s: 4th March 5th March The regulation of media content in the United Kingdom draws a lot from the codes of practice made by various bodies that are either fully or largely independent. In some instances, bodies that have a statutory power over the media make the codes. On the other hand, the players in the media such as the journalists and media owners make the regulations. The purpose of the paper is to apply the codes of practice that are applicable in the media while centering on the codes of conduct that touch primarily on the social media in the united kingdom. The paper will draw its illustrations from the United Kingdom law and case laws (Daige, 2012). The social media is different from the conventional media in a number of important ways. Social media is different from the traditional media in terms of spontaneity. The users of social media can instantaneously post some information from wherever they are without any safeguards that vet the communication. Social media also has a different scope. The media can virtually reach many people than the common media (Sivek, 2010, pp. 146--164). The audience is global. This means that millions or thousands depending on the popularity of the person using the media could access the information. The other element of social media that makes it unique is the fact that the information has a high degree of permanence. The information can be saved leading to the formation of a record that is hard to bring down. There are different forms of social media ranging from the video sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr, micro blogging sites for example twitter, social networking sites such as, Facebook and LinkedIn. The above sites present the respective user with an opportunity to work and communicate in a completely new way. The social networking sites are sources of good and productive relationships and the negative relationships. These aspects of the social media lead to a greater risk than the one posed by the conventional media. The users of social media risk exposing themselves to the risk of being bullied. There is also a risk of breaching the privacy rights of the other people. This means that the social media demands more laws that are specific (UK Parliament, 2011, pp. 1-100). The players in the media in the United Kingdom have come up with various laws meant to reduce the misuse of social media by the people. Most of the laws regulating social media touch on the issues of defamation, privacy and cyberbullying (Daige, 2012). The international community is affected by the use of social media in the same manner since there is no way of telling the jurisdiction of the social media. However, each nation has the role of developing its own comprehensive framework of laws meant to regulate the actions in the social media. Most of the laws that are relevant in the attainment of this goal are also applicable in the traditional media. The regulation is more effective in the conventional media regulation than in the social media due to the differences in nature of the social media. Despite the regulations that are present in the social media, the effectiveness of these laws is questionable. There are instances where the laws have failed in reducing the extent and recurrence of cyber violations (Sivek, 2010, pp. 146--164). The social media is always full of cases of defamation and breach of privacy. Another worrying trend with the social media is that it has led to the development of major cases of suicide more so in the teenagers due to cyber bullying. The length of the paper is not sufficient point out the cases of failure in the regulation framework in all the areas, but it will focus on the three recurrent cases of violations. The concerns raised in the regulation of the social media stem from issues such as the constant breach of the right to privacy, protection of the data from internet hackers, the regulation of hate speech, incitement, and cyberbullying. However, there are question raised by the skeptics on how feasible the self-regulation drives and the external regulation is in the real sense. There is a constant belief among the regulators that self-regulation is not sufficient (Hade, 2011, p. 133). This means that the government ought to place some tools aimed at the attainment of effective regulation of the industry (Hassan, 2011, p. 1). The tools that are often proposed as means of regulating the industry include the pubic supervisions of the media, passing of regulations and administrative measures in the digital platform (Sossi, 2012, p. 64). The effectiveness of the regulation is still plagued by some other issues such as the rampant concerns of the government intervention in the regulation process. To some of the people, the government intervention is a major breach into their right to express themselves freely (UK Parliament, 2011, pp. 1-100). The people propose that the best way of dealing with the industry is by the use of a constitutional approach. The United Kingdom believes that the royal charter is better than the government legislation (Daige, 2012). This mode of regulation is thought to be better than the self-regulation since there is a government feel in the regulation (UK Parliament, 2011, pp. 1-100). The self-regulation mechanism is made up of an online supervisor and a self-regulation commission. However, the lack of a proper definition of the legal purpose of the self-regulation is a major cause of its failure (Sivek, 2010, pp. 146--164). The self-regulation approach is often criticized since the people that are involved in this process are deemed interested parties. Self-regulation can lead to the removal of offensive content from the media. However, the major concerns raised by the people touch on the motivators for such action. The opponents of the approach lead argue that in as much as the offensive content is removed from the public domain, there is no way of dealing with the pain that the persons mentioned in a post or depicted in the video undergo. Therefore, the self-regulation approach is more or less a failure. The other critic to the approach arises from the fact that the information that is removed could be reposted by any person that had it (Hassan, 2011, p. 1). This means that the removal of the post is a mere tip of the iceberg. The real issue is still there even after the post has been removed. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the issue will not resurface to plague the victims of the offence. The other failure of self-regulation is the conflicting interests of the users. For instance, a site such as Facebook can remove the offensive post or video from the site but it does not inform the authorities on the offensive party. This means that this person will be in a position of repeating the same act in the future (Sossi, 2012, p. 64). The other issue that faces self-regulation is that it allows the users of the social media to retain multiple accounts (Hade, 2011, p. 133). A person may have many accounts that he may have registered using a pseudonym. The use of a pseudonym means that the government cannot trace this person since he or she is a fictitious being. The self-regulating sites ought to ensure that the people that use their sites are not keeping more than one account. The companies should at least try to do away with the use of pseudonyms to reduce the incidents of misuse of the social media (UK Parliament, 2011, pp. 1-100). The regulatory framework used by the government is also lacking in thoroughness. In the recent times, there have been incidences of misuse of the social media whereby the users have consistently reduced the credibility of the regulatory system in the United Kingdom. The cases that have been successfully prosecuted have led to the slapping of jail terms to the offenders. This has been a trend in the United Kingdom for a long time. The inadequacy of the regulatory system continues regardless of the status of the aggrieved party (Peshin, 2012, pp. 33--35). R v Thomas Daley In R vs. Thomas Daley case, there were many questions on the commitment of the government to regulate the social media. This was in the case of a tweet by the defendant who sent out a homophobic message. The offender in question is an influential football player hence he has a wide following (Starmer, 2012). In a tweet, the footballer was targeting the gay community in the United Kingdom. Due to his wide following, the message was widely read. There were numerous calls for a legal action against him, but the director of public prosecutions termed the post as a case of misguided humor. The player was arrested, and there was later released on bail. The prosecutor was clear that there were no charges that would be brought against the player (Hade, 2011, p. 133). This incident was not a mere statement of fact. In fact, the post could be seen as an incitement to the people against the gay members of the society. The fact that the post was specific could be seen as a move for defamation (UK Parliament, 2011, pp. 1-100). However, the inadequacy of the regulation systems in the United Kingdom gave the player a leeway to use the media in the wrong manner. His team suspended him however; this was not a solution since the real damage had been done. R v Matthew Woods In R vs. Matthew Woods the defendant made a series of derogatory remarks on a missing child. Many people moved to his house seeking to avenge their anger (Paslawsky and Ra, 2011, p. 1485). The police intervened in order to protect Mathew from the crowd that was obviously out to kill him or cause other bodily injury to him (BBC News, 2012). The accused committed offences that would warrant a longer jail term than the twelve weeks term that he served. The approach that the government used in dealing with the defamation case was shoddy at best. However, the judges could not hand the offender a longer terms since there is a limit set on the maximum term that an offender can server for such comments (Hassan, 2011, p. 1). The above case indicates that both the self-regulatory mechanisms and the government initiated regulatory drives were inadequate (BBC News, 2012). The self-regulatory commissioner ought to have shot down the post immediately after it was put online. The government ought to have put more stringent criminal remedies similar to the ones used in the regulation of the conventional media. R v Azhar Ahmed In R vs. Azhar Ahmed, there was a defamation complaint brought against the defendant when the defendant posted an offensive Facebook message about six British soldiers who were killed in action. The message was grossly offensive to say the least (Judiciary Of England & Wales, 2012). It was more of jubilation over the deaths of other people. He posted that all the soldier ought to die and go to hell. According to him, this message was not offensive at all. It was natural for him to post it since he was just stating what he thought to be true (Sivek, 2010, pp. 146--164). He was just exercising his constitutional right to expression. However, in all the exercise of the constitutional rights, on has to consider the impact of the comment on the other people (Judiciary Of England & Wales, 2012). This is consistent with the legal limitation on the rights of people as it is contained in the constitution of the United Kingdom. According to the constitution, a person has the right to act in a certain manner as long as he is not dealing in a criminal offence and as long as his action does not trespass to the rights of the other person. The comments made on the social media were against the law and they were trespass to persons (Hade, 2011, p. 133). The regulation framework ought to be designed in such a way that right from the time the message is sent on the social media there is not breach of any rights of the people. The other approach that the law should take is to create the maximum punishment possible for the offender. One of the ways that the regulation structure can use to identify the user of the social media that are potential repeat offenders is by tracking the activity of such users. The tracking could be seen as the breach of the rights of the people to privacy; however, this breach is more of unavoidable. The respect of the rights of the offender has turned out to be a counterproductive measure since it has directly or indirectly led to the development of a culture of offenders getting away with their posts such as in one of the cases mentioned above. In the cases where the offenders have been punished, the punishment has been inadequate, and it is not commensurate with the measures taken against similar offences that take place in the mainstream media (Hassan, 2011, p. 1). The government and the players in the industry have to come up with new approaches to the regulations that are inclusive. The measures adopted by the stakeholder in the social media ought to be conclusive in order to curb the regulatory framework. The question of whether the regulation framework can be efficient is contingent on the approaches that the players in the industry assume. The owners of the social media sites ought to put the interests of the rest of the users before their profit-making motive (Paslawsky and Ra, 2011, p. 1485). The government ought to take more than a backseat role in the regulation business whereby it will enforce the regulation laws on the social media with the same vigor that it displays when regulation the mainstream media. Otherwise, the regulations of the social media will continue being ineffective, and the offenders will be handed sentences that are not commensurate with their offences (Paslawsky and Ra, 2011, p. 1485). References R v Matthew Woods PCC 1 November 2012 R -v- Azhar Ahmed. [2012]. (HMC). BBC News. 2012. Man jailed for April Jones posts. 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[e-book] Huddersfied: Judiciary. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CIUBEBYwDQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.judiciary.gov.uk%2FResources%2FJCO%2FDocuments%2FJudgments%2Fazhar-ahmed-sentencing-remarks-09102012.pdf&ei=OaccU4HfIYLm7Aak4YHICA&usg=AFQjCNFmohek_BQLRf2KUTIMpyfJephcKg&sig2=3077I-8oxCBDuGjEtpcZdw&bvm=bv.62578216,d.ZGU [Accessed: 9 Mar 2014]. Paslawsky, A. and Ra. 2011. Growth of Social Media Norms and Governments Attempts at Regulation, The. Fordham Intl LJ, 35 p. 1485. Peshin, E. 2012. Law Enforcement 2.0: Regulating the Lawful Interception of Social Media. Springer, pp. 33--35. Sivek, S. C. 2010. Social Media Under Social Control Regulating Social Media and the Future of Socialization. Electronic news, 4 (3), pp. 146--164. Sossi, D. 2012. A Difficult Balance: Regulating Cyberbullying in the Age of Social Media. p. 64. Starmer, K. 2012. DPP statement on Tom Daley case and social media prosecutions - CPS News Brief. [online] Available at: http://blog.cps.gov.uk/2012/09/dpp-statement-on-tom-daley-case-and-social-media-prosecutions.html [Accessed: 9 Mar 2014]. UK Parliament. 2011. The Principles and SRA Code of Conduct 2011. London: UK Government, pp. 1-100. Read More