Social Media Networks: Calls For Tighter Regulations

One of the most fascinating technological inventions of the twenty first century is the development of social media networks such as YouTube, Twitter, and Face book. These social media networks make it possible for people to meet new people and make friends, locate old friends and family members, or to form a relationship that can result in marriage. They also provide a platform in the form of advertising for conducting businesses. Despite these benefits provided by the social media networks certain things can go awfully wrong on the networks. The most recent example of how the social media network can be turned into a weapon of criminality is the case last week involving threatening rape and murder messages sent to a number of British women on Twitter. Feminists are attempting to use this incident to rally for support for tighter regulations on activities being conducted within social media networks. Is it possible to control activities within these networks?

Having legislations governing activities within social media networks is desirable. A user who makes a murder threat to another user on the social media network, for example, should be taken seriously because the statement might represents the user’s intent to kill the target. Already there have been instances where online threats were implemented in the real world either by the people who made such threats or individuals who support them. However, these cases only represent a tiny fraction of threats being made on social media networks by people who cannot express their feelings about a person or something in the real world.

However, the issue of what constitutes a crime within the social media networks for prosecution is problematic. In the real world, human activities are classified into three main groups – lawful activities, unlawful activities, and morally unacceptable but not unlawful activities. The categorization of these activities is done using the legal system. An activity that is considered to be lawful in the western legal systems might not necessarily be considered lawful in the non western legal systems. For example, homosexuality is lawful in western society and people can be prosecuted for homophobic attitudes toward gays and lesbians. In contrast, homosexuality is unlawful in many non western societies and homosexuals can be prosecuted for engaging in homosexual acts. Therefore, the concept of crime within the social network is subjective and varies from one user to another.

Even though there were worldwide consensus on activities that constitute crimes within the social media networks the issue of prosecution for such crimes can be problematic. There are no provisions for social media crimes within the statutes of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and suspects of such crimes cannot be prosecuted at ICC. Prosecution for social media crimes therefore is possible only by states cooperation. Will states cooperate to bring perpetrators of social media crimes to justice?

For international crimes such as crimes against peace (waging of war against a country), war crimes (crimes committed by soldiers of one country against soldiers or citizens of another country) and crimes against humanity (crimes mostly committed by the state against its citizens) the position of states is clear. States do co-operate either by extraditing suspects to where they could be tried for alleged violations or exercising the right of jurisdiction over the alleged crimes to ensure that people accused of these serious crimes are punished. However, it is difficult to envisage how states can co-operate with one another to ensure that social media criminals are held accountable for their misdeeds. Can the criminal justice system of Nigeria for example process a Nigerian who has sent messages involving rape threats from Nigeria to a British lady in the UK for this crime in Nigeria? Or will Nigerian government extradite such suspect to UK for prosecution?

Aside from agreeing on whether to try a suspect for alleged social media crimes, prosecution for social media network crimes will also require a lot of resources. Millions of people use social media networks daily to perform a number of activities including keeping in touch with friends or making new friends. These users post millions of messages daily on the social networks. Monitoring these activities may impact heavily on limited resources considering that some users tend to conceal their real identities when meeting new users to ensure that they are safe if they decide not to continue with these users, while others may use pseudonyms within the social networks to conceal their identity for any potential criminality they may engage in within the sites.

The need for policing social media networks may not even arise if users of such social media networks can choose not to be victims of social media crimes. The so called social media crimes are committed within the social media networks. A user can only become the victim of these crimes if the user participates in the social media network. In other words, a person who does not participate in the social media networks or discontinue using the network cannot be a victim of the social media crimes. However, arguing that a person should avoid using social media networks or that social media network users should discontinue using the sites when there are perceived threats of social media crimes goes against the fundamental principle of the social media networks which is the ability of every web user to participate in the social media network without any fear of victimisation.

Feminists calls for legislations to govern activities within the social media networks is desirable to ensure that these sites are safe and free for every user. However, such legislations may not be effective considering the amount of resources required to police the global network and the difficulty associated with prosecuting alleged social media network criminals. Besides, social media networks operate in a virtual world. Activities conducted within the networks should not be treated as though they are committed in the real world.