There is no doubt that social media has its benefits in contemporary times. From social communication, professional networking, academic learning to community building, access to social media is now part of the package for equal opportunities. However, there is also recognition that social media can play a role in promoting violence in societies. Challenges such as online harassment, cyber stalking, and social media-incited violence are on the rise. Social media platforms are being used in innovative ways to perpetuate crimes against vulnerable population groups like women, children and ethnic and religious minorities.

Regions like South Asia, with more conflict-ridden populations, unstable political relations, and unenforced laws have witnessed grave misuse of social media in recent years. There is evidence that social media sites have been used for various crimes including: (i) promotion of graphic violence, (ii) gang and mob violence in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, (iii) ethnic conflict and massacre in India, (iv) misuse of blasphemy laws against religious minorities in Pakistan, and (v) genocide against Muslims in Myanmar.

Even when people are not openly promoting violence, their criticism of violence can contribute to oversharing of violent content or graphics. This can contribute to the normalisation of violence and its acceptance as a basic feature of human nature. Numerous scholars have presented evidence about social media’s role in sustaining gender-based violence, ethnic discrimination and religious intolerance; ironically, even when the overt purpose is to condemn violence. A case in point is the debate about how to manage domestic violence through TV plays in South Asia. Should these actually show the woman being hit or should it just be alluded to? Does the former sustain physical violence within the homes due to the reaffirmation that domestic violence is culturally accepted, despite the superficial censure?

It would not be wrong also to argue that social media-related crimes are a threat to public health. With young users, particularly, research suggests that social media crimes and graphic violent content can lead to aggressive behaviour and suicide ideation or actual acts of suicide. Other mental health problems such as stress, anxiety and depression are also common. People using social media in higher frequency are perpetually exposed to violence and may face some form of online crime at some point in their lives.

Who is to blame?

Theorists have argued over the nature versus nurture debate for centuries, questioning whether violence is part of human biology or taught through the socialisation process. There is agreement, however, that when groups of people get together, as they do on social media platforms, a few people, even a single individual, can drive large groups to violence. An experiment by Stanley Milgram (1986) confirmed that individuals are likely to follow the lead of authority figures in committing violence. Many will argue that that protection from online crimes and avoidance of violence through social media is the responsibility of the individual. Individuals are blamed for not avoiding social media or overusing it, not maintaining privacy or practicing self-censorship and inability to obfuscate posts and content. Promoting the belief that online crimes or social media-induced violence is inevitable and widespread prevents state and society from collectively abandoning the victim-blaming model and adopting a structural and strategic effort to prevent social media-related crimes.

Even when people do not mean to promote violence, their criticism of violence can contribute to oversharing of violent content or graphics. 

In the end, we are certain of two things: (i) there is a relationship between media violence and real-world violence, and (ii) blaming the individual in isolation will not resolve the problem. We have evidence that violence is moderated by the nature of the media content and characteristics of the individual exposed to that content. Thus, specific interventions pertaining to legislation, accountability and awareness are the way forward to balancing a life with productive social media use while preventing social media-induced crimes or violence.

Law enforcement and accountability

Pakistan has several laws regulating both social media and graphical content on TV, including the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016; the Removing and Blocking of Unlawful Online Content, Rules 2020; and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Rules, 2009. However, there is need for stricter moderation and surveillance of user identity and activities. Social media administrators and protective forces must unite for strict monitoring of user identity verification and content distribution, on a consistent basis, with immediate measures taken upon deviance, for the suspension of accounts or blockage of social media platforms. Though Facebook has recently launched an artificial intelligence-based programme to predict and prevent suicides, there is no independent research yet reporting the efficacy of this programme. We are in need of similar programmes to be implemented to predict and prevent violence and then to measure their efficacy.

Awareness programmes

As social media has become a vital part of everybody’s life, we need the integration of awareness programmes across different structures of society about the ill-effects of social media, how to identify and deal with online crimes and avoidance techniques for violent content and communication. Awareness programmes can be delivered through family and parents to support youth in appropriate and safe use of social media. A family-level awareness session could include content related to authenticity of posts, resisting normalisation of violence projected on social media and developing coping strategies and alternative strategies for over-use and exposure to violent content. This could also serve the dual objective of improving quality family life, which is also a major challenge in contemporary days. Similarly, the education sector and community health centres can be used for awareness building. An example of a successful education intervention in Germany included integration in students’ curriculum about (i) restricting consumption of violent media, and (ii) improving critical and negative attitudes toward violent media. In this way, awareness interventions must include a macro-objective of not only changing and monitoring usership patterns, but also altering beliefs and attitudes towards violence.

The writer is associate professor and chair, Department of Sociology, Forman Christian College University. She can be reached at sarajafree@fccollege.edu.pk, and tweets at @JafreeRizvi