Reckless use of social media and unfiltered obscenity served for free
Rahul Kushwaha
Process Management | Communication Strategy & Political Campaign | Social Media Consultant
With around 193 crore users worldwide and 11.2 crore users in India, #Facebook, the world's largest social media platform, is now turning into the biggest platform for spreading obscenity and nudity. Should the use of this platform be banned for children under 18 years now? Is this happening intentionally or does Zuckerberg have no perfect technical solution to block such content? Who will answer these questions?
According to a report published in August 2020, content related to adult #nudity and #sexual activity on Facebook increased from 8.1 million pieces of content in the first quarter of 2020 to 12.4 million by the second quarter of 2020. Facebook says that if they find such content, they remove it. The question is, why does it take so long for them to get such content which reaches millions of users? The recorded number of likes, shares, and comments of such videos and reels exposes the lies of Facebook.
The way nudity is being served by Facebook and #Instagram through #short videos and countless video channels is a challenge for a society that does not see any way to deal with it except to detach itself from this platform. But this is equivalent to closing your eyes to the crime happening in the neighborhood.
The problem is that this nudity and obscenity are being made available on the wall of users without their consent. After watching a video message from your Facebook friend, other videos automatically appear on the user's wall. Some argue that Facebook's software provides video content based on users' past viewing preferences. The question is that Facebook does not have any topic selection option like Google, so how come obscene videos appear on the wall for the first time? The current situation is that there is no guarantee as to when an obscene video will appear on the user's wall. The condition of short videos which are called reels is even worse. The vulgarity being served in a few seconds of video is extremely shameful. This is a frightening situation at the social level. The way those who intend to make money by creating video channels are uploading obscene video content and Facebook has failed to stop them. Hence, it would be correct to declare Facebook as an adult social media platform.
Facebook facilitates complaints against objectionable #content. But the users do not know what happens on the complaint. Complaints resources are proving to be inadequate. No other solution is available for the users other than computer-based messages to register the complaint.
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It is a matter of great concern that today devices like mobiles, tablets, and laptops are available in the hands of children in every house. Online and virtual classes have become a part of education, so keeping children away from them is also not possible today. In such a situation, their presence on social media is equal to that of adults. Small children are also watching short videos on their parents' mobiles. In such a situation, the children are unknowingly getting exposed to content they should not be seeing. It can be ascertained from the history of Google search what the child has seen, but the social media platform does not generate the history. So, the Guardian does not get to know what his child is watching or listening to
According to a 2020 report, 4,320 minutes of video is uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds. Every minute 2,16,00 new photos are uploaded to Instagram. In addition, every 60 seconds there are 3,472 photo pins on Pinterest and 2,460,000 content shares on Facebook. 2,77,000 tweets are done every 60 seconds. 6 billion videos are viewed every day on Snapchat. No staff can search and sift through this massive amount of content. Therefore, this problem can be solved only by using technology. But the seriousness that should be seen in this direction is lacking in the social media platform operators. If this was not the case, advertisements filled with obscene video content in the name of sex therapy would not appear on social media platforms, for which a hefty amount is charged.
After the first social media platform named Six Degrees in 1997, Friendster came in 2002 and LinkedIn in 2003, and MySpace in 2004, what was the need for platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, etc? What should be done to save our coming generation from promiscuous and perverted sex attitudes is a matter of grave concern. Do you have an answer to this??