Following the renewed media attention on a highly controversial Facebook image, the South African Human Rights Commission has called for the greater regulation of social networking sites.
According to a statement from commission chairman Lawrence Mushwana, the lack of regulatory mechanisms on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, result in users engaging in acts of hate speech or other human rights violations.
Mushwana says the use of fictitious personal details to create profiles on social networks makes users extremely difficult, if not impossible, to trace in cases in which they need to be held accountable for their conduct.
The Hawks announced over the weekend that it has launched an investigation to find the man calling himself "Eugene Terrorblanche" who published the offensive image of a white man sitting with a rifle over the seemingly lifeless body of a black child.
The Hawks indicated it is searching for the people responsible for the photo, for the user-profile and for those who failed to report the photograph to the relevant authorities.
The issue is, however, not isolated to SA, and the commission says it is an international one that requires global discussions and solutions.
While Mushwana acknowledges that social networks play an important role in promoting the right to freedom of expression, he says it is clear practical ways should be found to ensure they are used appropriately.
Hands off
Social media lawyer Paul Jacobson says the call for regulation of social networks is “chilling” and ignores the fact that the law in SA already prohibits such incitements.
“The right to freedom of expression specifically excludes its application to incitement to violence and hate speech. Criminal activities co-ordinated through social services, the phone or word of mouth are equally illegal and punishable,” says Jacobson.
“I also believe that just as with content piracy, criminals intent on abusing social services to further their criminal activities will find other ways to do this if current channels are simply cut off.
“What governments and regulators should rather do is find better ways to make use of these services to harness crowd wisdom to monitor and combat the social Web's abusers,” says Jacobson.
Bad news?
The recent London riots sparked a similar debate regarding the censoring of the social Web.
“The short answer is 'no' and that these services typically take action against the offending material or account where the use falls foul of their terms of service or is otherwise illegal.”
Facebook's terms of service ask that users uphold certain commitments when using the platform. This includes: “You will not post content that: is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.”
As well as: “You will not use Facebook to do anything unlawful, misleading, malicious, or discriminatory.”
Twitter and Google+ contain similar conditions, and Jacobson says the point is that the social services contain mechanisms in their terms of service and can delete the user's profile when their rules are infringed.
Short-sighted
Governments (most recently the British government) and regulatory bodies have, however, raised the possibility of introducing regulation over and above the mechanisms that are put in place by the networks themselves.
“The desire to censor or restrict these services because they may have been used by criminal elements in the United Kingdom is short-sighted and doesn't take into account the beneficial uses of these services,” notes Jacobson.
Three of Sweden's newspapers have also reportedly changed their Web sites to monitor anonymous comments from readers in an effort to reduce online expressions of racism and hatred. The decision followed the concerns raised after the terror attacks in Norway in July.
Many recognised the xenophobic arguments of confessed killer, Anders Behring Breivik, in reader comments and chat forums, after his manifesto was made public.
One of the tabloids, Expressen, said it would begin moderating comments before they are published. Two other newspapers shut down their comment fields and introduced a new system that requires users to log in with their Facebook or e-mail accounts before making comments.
In terms of the debate surrounding the Sunday Times article, Jacobson raises two serious issues: “The photo was still available on Facebook three years after it was first noticed by the media and the photo still depicts a very disturbing image of a white man enthusiastically posing over the apparent body of a black boy with his rifle as if the white man hunted him.”
In terms of the issue of regulation raised by the South African Human Rights Commission, however, Jacobson says it is important to point out that the call for assistance in identifying the individual in question in the photograph was made, in part, using the social Web.
“The social Web is not inherently good or bad, and regulatory frameworks exist alongside contractual frameworks established by these social services to recognise and combat abuses like hate speech and incitements to violence,” says Jacobson.
“What governments and regulators are forced to contend with is a fundamental shift of the power dynamics between them and citizens, but those shifts can have profoundly beneficial implications for the same citizens those regulators seek to protect.”
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