{"id":11854,"date":"2019-02-18T15:58:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T15:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=11854"},"modified":"2019-02-18T15:58:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T15:58:58","slug":"report-finds-an-urgent-need-for-independent-regulation-of-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/education-languages-health\/languages\/report-finds-an-urgent-need-for-independent-regulation-of-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Report finds an urgent need for independent regulation of social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday 18\u00a0February 2019, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published its long awaited final report on Disinformation and \u2018fake news\u2019<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0The report covered an enquiry that spanned 18 months, oral evidence from 73 witnesses including The Open University, over 4350 questions and a final \u2018International Grand Committee\u2019 meeting in November 2018. Its main recommendations focus on the \u2018urgent need to establish independent regulation\u2019 of social media and technology companies, such as a compulsory \u2018code of ethics\u2019, as well as an overhaul of current electoral law. These are bold suggestions, designed to enable the government to tackle such weighty issues as electoral fraud, the abuse of user data and the spread of disinformation false news.<\/p>\n

Dr Caroline Tagg<\/a>, Lecturer in Applied Linguistics\u00a0and\u00a0Dr Philip Seargeant<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at The OU give an overview of the report:<\/p>\n

Still a need for digital literacy<\/h3>\n

The focus of the enquiry has evolved considerably since it was first set up, and the final report (building as it does on the Committee\u2019s interim report<\/a> released last autumn), is predominantly focused on issues around electoral malpractice and data mismanagement rather than the more narrow concept of \u2018fake news\u2019 with which it began. Despite this, one of the key recommendations still concerns the need for digital literacy education. Given the wider context of the new report, ideas of what count as digital literacy are themselves becoming broader, and now include issues such as understanding what data is generated when people communicate via social media, what happens to this data, as well as the provenance and purpose of political adverts.<\/p>\n

Creating an environment with friction<\/h3>\n

One notable feature of the report is the way it challenges social media companies\u2019 aim to achieve \u2018a frictionless experience\u2019 for their users, and argues for the need to introduce friction back \u2018into the system\u2019, by which they mean \u2018there should be obstacles put in their place to make the process of posting or sharing more thoughtful or slower\u2019. The Committee cites the Center for Humane Technology<\/a>\u2019s suggestions for creating friction, including \u2018the ability to share a post or a comment, only if the sharer writes about the post; the option to share a post only when it has been read in its entirety; and a way of monitoring what is about to be sent, before it is sent\u2019. These are undoubtedly useful suggestions that can enable users to change their behaviour, whilst challenging the potentially dangerous assumptions<\/a> underlying social media companies\u2019 policies and strategies.<\/p>\n

Why do we share fake news?<\/h3>\n

\"\"But changing technology is only one part of the equation. It is also important to understand why<\/em> people share false stories, and\u00a0the effect this type of disinformation actually has on people\u2019s actions. After all, the spread of disinformation online is related to how people use sites like Facebook \u2013 and this is shaped by the fact that Facebook is, first and foremost, a social<\/em> space. This was recognised in the Committee\u2019s interim report, which in turn cited the evidence we gave to the Committee in January that \u2018to many people Facebook was not seen as a news media site, but a \u201cplace where they carry out quite complex maintenance and management of their social relationships\u201d\u2019. As our research<\/a> shows, when people post to Facebook they potentially address a range of different social ties, from close family members to colleagues and acquaintances. It can be a tricky process to manage these various relationships all at the same time while not offending or upsetting anyone. Because of this, what someone shares or likes is often determined as much by the ties they have with their network as by a strict evaluation of its credibility. Picking up on the concepts used in the final report, this might involve what we could call social friction<\/em>: the way in which someone\u2019s social ties and relationships might shape, complicate or challenge their online behaviour, potentially leading them to post something they might suspect is false (because it came from a friend). Or, alternatively, it might prompt them to \u2018pause and think before generating or consuming content\u2019, as the Committee puts it (because of the user\u2019s concerns about how they might come across to others, for example).<\/p>\n

Questioning what we read and write<\/h3>\n

For this reason, as we argued in our own evidence to the committee<\/a>, any solution to the problem needs to include critical digital literacy education alongside technological solutions. In line with this, the final report points out that the Committee \u2018cannot stress highly enough the importance of greater public understanding of digital information \u2013 its scale, importance and influence\u2019. They also reiterate their recommendation from the interim report that digital literacy should be made a \u2018fourth pillar of education alongside reading, writing and maths\u2019, a recommendation which, unfortunately, the government has yet to pick up on; while the Committee\u2019s earlier suggestion of a social media company levy to finance a comprehensive educational framework was rejected in the government\u2019s response to the interim report. Nonetheless, digital literacy re-emerges in the final report as a crucial element of the need for friction, with the Committee\u2019s recommendation \u00a0that \u2018[t]echniques for slowing down interaction online should be taught, so that people themselves question both what they write and what they read \u2013 and that they pause and think further, before they make a judgement online\u2019. It concludes by calling for a \u2018united approach\u2019 to digital literacy which includes \u2018a public discussion on how we, as individuals, are happy for our data to be used and shared\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This \u2018united approach\u2019, we would argue, needs to incorporate a critical education programme that also includes\u00a0what we call social digital literacies<\/em>. Alongside traditional digital literacy skills, we need to provide greater critical awareness among the general public of how our social interactions and relationships play an important part in influencing our decisions regarding what to share or like \u2013 and how this in turn can contribute to the circulation and visibility of news in the online environment. While technological tweaks can introduce friction into the system, users are also contending online with multiple sources of social friction \u2013 that is, the various social and personal relationships that we manage online and our concerns regarding how we come across to others \u2013 all of which shape our online behaviour and may prompt \u2018more pause for thought\u2019 as much as it may encourage us to spread false content.<\/p>\n

Find out more<\/h2>\n

Read\u00a0Fake news and the need for ‘social’ digital literacy\u00a0<\/a>on OU News<\/p>\n

Studying Language<\/a> and Linguistics<\/a> at The Open University<\/p>\n

Dr Caroline Tagg<\/a>, Lecturer in Applied Linguistics\u00a0and\u00a0Dr Philip Seargeant<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at The OU<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday 18\u00a0February 2019, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published its long awaited final report on Disinformation and \u2018fake news\u2019.\u00a0The report covered an enquiry that spanned 18 months, oral evidence from 73 witnesses including The Open University, over 4350 questions and a final \u2018International Grand Committee\u2019 meeting in November 2018. Its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11857,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[862,1166,1525,1640,2055,2403],"class_list":["post-11854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-languages","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-internet","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-social-media","tag-wels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}