Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATION IN LIGHT OF TERRORISM

Social Media Regulation in Light of Terrorism

Kara Ingersoll

Dr. Bala Musa

Media Law & Ethics

8 April 2019
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The Significance of the Event

The Event

On Friday, March 15, 2019, an unfathomable event occurred in two peaceful mosques

located in New Zealand. As many families and singles packed into the two buildings to worship,

a gunman entered with an intention to kill. Lives were taken and others were scarred with the

harsh memory of gunfire. Fifty lives were lost in the shootings at Christchurch. One would

wonder if white supremacy is to blame; others would assume terrorism, but one thing is for sure.

Social media played an enormous role in crafting and carrying out the shootings. Social media

privacy has been in debate for years now, but after the Christchurch shooting, the debates are

stronger and more prevalent than ever.

Social media allows real-time information to be spread to the world. The gunman, during

the deadly rampage, was able to access his social media accounts in order to live stream his plans

and action of killing the peaceful worshippers. On March 15, the live stream lasted over 17

minutes. The video was broadcasted over social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

and more. As the live stream played out, the platforms were unable to get rid of the vicious and

scarring material. CNN wrote, “Facebook said Sunday that it removed 1.5 million videos of the

attack in the first 24 hours. It blocked 1.2 million of them at upload, meaning they would not

have been seen by users. Facebook didn't say how many people had watched the remaining

300,000 videos” (Pham, 2019). Though Facebook deleted the majority of the live streams

circulating, many platform users still watched the live stream unfold. The lack of privacy on

social media allowed 300,000 copies of the video to circulate, causing the question of content

monitoring and privacy on social media sites.

The Issue
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The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Arden spoke out against social media platforms

calling for stronger regulation and privacy settings for users. “Facebook's ability to automatically

block 1.2 million videos at upload, "tells me there are powers to take a very direct approach to

instances of speech that incites violence, or that incites hate," Ardern said at a news conference

Monday,” CNN wrote (Pham, 2019). Prime minister Arden’s called for social media sites to take

responsibility for the spread of the hate crime. For years, the sites have been ridiculed for the

spread of terroristic activity.

The Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, otherwise known as ISIS, was the first terrorist group to

utilize social media platforms in order to gain followers, sympathizers, members, and supporters

for their attacks on communities across the world. A study was conducted in order to discover

the impact of terrorist groups using social media to gain traction. It was found that over 150

Facebook and Twitter accounts generated over 2000 keywords playing a role in terrorist activity

(Awan, 2017). Though social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have the ability to

delete over 1 million harmful videos once they have been posted, social media sites continue to

ignore the terrorist propaganda circulating the internet.

Related Cultural, Legal, and Ethical Principles

Cultural

Culture is the way in which humans are raised. Lives revolve around culture. As the years

go on, culture shifts as well. As weapons, communication, electronics, and modern day culture

shift, there is access to greater danger and spread of awareness. The culture of mass shootings

has led to fear in the world. The problem of this culture deals with the impact of social media and

its impact on the culture that has been in existence since the beginning of time.
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The terrorist culture is meant to gain traction and attention from the community. In

relation to the New Zealand attacks, the gunman wanted his work to be viewed by the world. In a

different case, ISIS utilizes the spread of information through propaganda. Propaganda plays a

huge role in the nature of terrorist culture as it is the driving force between leaders and their

potential followers. Culture was seen as a huge risk for propaganda to speak into young Muslims

in an article by Andy Oppenheimer stating, “Analysts suggest that young Muslims and others

feel disenfranchised and not part of the societies in which they were raised. They may react

against liberal western values as well as resenting western foreign policies in Muslim lands.

They then become ripe for extremist radicalization and recruitment, which poses one of the

biggest challenges of our time” (Oppehheimer, 2017, p 60). As seen through the quote, terrorist

groups are able to cater their propaganda to the members they want. Tackling the already broken

youth that was raised in a culture that looked at Westerners as horrible figures, the terrorists are

able to utilize social media to strengthen their numbers and effect on the world.

Legal

The public and government want of stronger privacy settings, content control, and user

monitoring on social media platforms may lead to questions of whether the amendments are

being upheld by social media sites. In Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints, and the

Modern Media, the author, John D. Zelezny, discusses the different parts of communications law

and the way in which the amendments must be upheld in the world of the media. While social

media is not directly inspected by Zelenzny, the information shared in the textbook offers

explanations of laws that pertain to the want of social media regulation.

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Different lawsuits may become present if social media sites regulate who and what may

use the different platforms; however, if not taken ahold of, harm through advertising may

become an even larger legal problem than it already is. In Zelezny’s chapter three, he states that

media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, could be found negligent if, for example, the live stream

video of the gunman in New Zealand triggered others to go out and do the same thing (p 112).

Due to the fact that the sites allowed the information to be spread, they could become a cause of

interest. This is due to the fact that allowing the video to spread knowing the video could cause

harm through others, would cause the social media platforms to be held accountable for the

spread of the video.

Another legal implication that could potentially push for greater social media regulation

is emotional distress. As discussed by Zelezny in chapter five, a tort of privacy, “intentional

infliction of emotional distress, has crept into communications litigation in recent years” (p 114).

It is through the emotional distress that the social media platforms have caused on users that may

cause lawsuits against the platforms. The sites that allowed the live stream of the shooting in

New Zealand and the spread of terroristic activity could have caused great emotional distress on

users. Otherwise known as outrage, as stated by Zelezny, if distress was caused by the viewing

of terrorist material, there could be a case. If proven to have distress, the plaintiff would have to

share an outstanding amount of emotional distress from viewing and interacting with the

disturbing material.

While there are legal cases that could surround social media sites not taking action for

privacy, there is also the possibility of lawsuits if more regulation came into play. Concerns from

the public are bound to appear if they feel too much regulation is taking course in their life. The
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question of privacy and how much control users should have would be a huge question that

would come along with social media regulation.

As speculated in chapter five of Communications Law, the privacy of cyberspace is in

question with social media platform regulation. With regulation would come monitoring and

collecting information. If sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram would collect information

from its users, in a more detailed form than that which is already collected, then users could feel

their privacy is being invaded. “Spyware makes it possible to track website visits and to

accumulate such data as the length of time spent on each page and the number of return visits

generated by a page,” wrote Zelezny (p 225). The problem with spyware is the question of how

much information collected is too much information. Users could potentially generate a lawsuit

if social media sites exceed how much information may be collected through their use of the site.

If legal action was taken against the regulation of social media, the sites would most

likely find trouble through the information and data being collected. For example, if the

enormous social media sites collected information that terroristic information was being shared

on a personal site through messaging and that user was refused access to continue using the

social media sites, there could be legal action for privacy in cyberspace. Zelezny wrote, “A

second source of relevant law is state criminal statutes that prohibit various forms of electronic

surveillance or interception of private communications” (p 223). To a certain extent, online

sources are not permitted to intercept private messages between users. It is through the

messaging; however, that in the example the user was taken off of the social media platform for

sharing terroristic ideas. While this is an example, this problem could become prevalent with

more social media regulation. Though this could be a legal case, the ethical question of deleting

users for their ideology is present.

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Ethical

With social media regulation would come the question of ethics. Being based in the brain,

the regulators of social media would have to utilize ethical thinking in order to reach a

conclusion of how to regulate social media. There are many different ways to reason ethics. With

certain criteria comes different terms that social media platforms would have to balance in their

decision to regulate their feeds to stray from the spread of terrorism and harmful content.

One criterion of ethical reasoning that could come into play with the regulation of social

media platforms is teleology. Teleology, also known as Act Utilitarianism in Doing Ethics in

Media: Theories and Practical Applications by Jay Black and Chris Roberts, is defined in the

sense that “we should try to see which specific action will-or is likely to-produce the greatest

balance of good over evil in the universe” (p 322). The regulation of social media in order to

lessen the activity and spread of terroristic activity could potentially result in a lower number of

mass shootings and bombings. In a teleology perspective, the lessening of mass shootings would

greatly benefit humans as it would lessen the number of deaths caused by mass shootings.

Though it is not guaranteed, the regulation of social media could help the greater amount of

people from loss and hurt.

Though teleology has the potential to help the greatest number of people, the question of

relativism would come into play. As another ethical reasoning criteria relativism poses problems

as Black and Roberts discuss it stating, “There seems to seem to be no clear and universal moral

absolutes governing media ethics, we might ten dot revert to relativism, arguing that all opinions

have equal value” (p 7). The problem with relativism is that it seeks to find the common ground

for all to have an equal chance. In regards to social media regulation, the culture of others will

most definitely play a role in what is considered taking it too far with regulation. Black and
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Roberts make a point to say that not everyone will be pleased with the outcome of an ethical

decision (p 7). It is due to this that the social media platforms seeking more regulation would

have to seek to benefit the most amount of people.

Recommending Change & Progress

While it may seem changes are not occurring with social media platforms regulating who

and what is going on social media, they are. Change and progress can be seen through multiple

different platforms. Since the creation of social media, regulation has been shifting through

government and public force. Though it continuously changes, regulation will never reach its full

potential as it is ever-changing, but there are ways to improve social media and it begins with the

progress it has already made.

The regulation of social media has been shifting since it was created, but there were

significant events that have shown the effect of regulation. In an article written by Wayne Rash,

he spoke of such changes. Facebook had been under heat from the 2016 election when false

advertisements were sent into feeds of Facebook users. The advertisements were false. They

manipulated attitudes towards certain candidates but were put out by hackers. After this,

Facebook had a security breach where the user’s information was spread into the dark web.

Months after this event, Facebook is in more trouble with privacy as they went against their own

code for utilizing user’s private information. Rash made a point in stating, “The penalties for

violating such an agreement with the FTC include fines of up to $40,000 per violation. In

addition, the FTC can make the consent decree even stronger by subjecting Facebook to

greater regulation” (“Facebook Data Breach”, 2018). It is through this example that social media

users can see regulation occurring. The FTC has the ability to regulate Facebook and ensure the
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safety of users. Unfortunately, it regulated Facebook too late. The misuse of information was

already achieved, but it is one step closer to regulating the privacy of social media.

When seeking change with social media regulation, it is rooted in the regulation of who

may be permitted to use the platforms and what may be posted on the platforms. Recommending

stronger systems to detect who and what is entering cyberspace is the simplest factor; however, it

is easier said than done. In an interview on PBS between Judy Woodruff and the Washington

Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin, the two broke down what changes have occurred since the tragic

Christchurch mass shooting in the world of social media regulation.

In the interview between Woodruff and Dwoskin, Dwoskin talked about her previous and

present experience with social media regulation. While social media is regulated, sites like

Facebok and Twitter work through an algorithm. Programs are meant to stop the flow of harmful

information; however, the New Zealand shooting brought up a different scenario. Due to the fact

that the video was a live stream, the algorithm could not keep up with the live stream along with

the reposts of the video to other social media platforms. Dwoskin mentioned, “And what's wild is

that, even though it was kind of an all-systems-go effort, by the next morning, they were

realizing that the stuff is still up and easily findable” (Woodruff, 2019). Social media sites should

be knowledgeable in their programs. While this was an unseen event, there should be stricter

barriers between what is being posted whether is it a live stream or not.

While the problem of violence being posted to social media is prevalent, it is also human

error. In order to fix the issue occurring, especially following the shooting at Christchurch where

social media was used as a lethal weapon to spread hate, social media is human error. In a

Forbes article titled surrounding the topic of stopping terroristic activity on social media, the

author believes human error is to blame. Similar to the interview between Woodruff and
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Dwoskin, the author informs that humans filter through billions of posts for terroristic activity;

however, the consistency is lacking. It is quite impossible for a human to know what is terroristic

activity and what is not in the grand scheme of posts. For fairness, the humans are not permitted

to block users due to their posts, but this is how the terrorists are able to target new followers

(Leetaru, 2018). It is time for social media platforms to gain stronger technology to filter who is

entering social media sites and how those sites are being manipulated in order to share terroristic

activity.

Biblical Integration

The world is reflected as a dark and cruel place following mass shootings and terrorist

attacks. Seeking God is difficult, especially when it seems God is absent from life. Luckily, God

is not absent from the difficult times. This is a broken world. Sin has crowded the minds of

humans to take our view from Jesus away. The good news comes with the death and resurrection

of Jesus. He died for our sins so that we may flourish and be forgiven. “For God so loved the

world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have

eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV). This verse is a beautiful reminder that though the world is broken,

Christians have Jesus to fall back on. God gave his Son so that the world could have light.

Though the world is broken, there can still be speculation as to how religion plays a role

in terrorist attacks like the New Zealand mass shooting. Religion is not to blame, but rather

ideology is to blame. In the article, Don’t Blame God for Terrorism, the author urges readers to

realize that the gunman, bombers, and terrorists completing their killings are not focused on their

religion, but more so on their ideology. Being afraid to be enlisted in the war, resenting a group

of people for their treatment, or proving a political view, terrorists have altered motives that do

not revolve solely around religion (D’Souza, 2009). It is through loving kindness, that the world
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will see a shift in the way humans act towards each other. Until the peace of God reigns upon the

earth, Christians must work to show love.

Conclusion

On March 15, 2019, the world was shaken as 50 peaceful worshipping Muslims entered

two mosques and their lives were taken. Posted across different social media platforms, the

gunman live streamed his act of terrorism and shared it with the world. It is more important than

ever that social media platforms take control and regulate their platforms. With deadly material

circulating and terroristic ideology spreading, social media platforms must act on the content and

people utilizing their sites.

While culture, laws, and ethics play a huge role in influencing the use of social media, it

is up to the social media platforms to use their power to filter content. With research, technology,

and seeking to advance the Kingdom, social media sites will be able to regulate social media in

order to keep a disaster like the New Zealand mass shooting out of communities.
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References

Awan, I. (2017). Cyber-Extremism: Isis and the Power of Social Media. Society, 54(2), 138–149.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-017-0114-0

Black, J., & Roberts, C. (2011). Doing Ethics in Media: Theories and Practical Applications.

London: Routledge.

Britton, B. (2019, March 16). How the New Zealand Terror Attack Unfolded. Retrieved from

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/asia/new-zealand-christchurch-attack-what-we-know-

intl/index.html

Dinesh D’Souza. (n.d.). Don’t blame God for terrorism. USA Today. Retrieved from

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=nfh&AN=J0E0

88238946609&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Facebook Data Breach Brings Demands for Social Media Regulation. (2018). EWeek, 3.

Retrieved from

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=aph&AN=1287

17058&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Leetaru, K. (2018, October 09). Can We Finally Stop Terrorists From Exploiting Social Media?

Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/10/09/can-we-finally-

stop-terrorists-from-exploiting-social-media/#5844a42e6d80

Oppehheimer, A. (2017). Caught in the World Wide Web: The Lure of Online Terrorist

Propaganda. Military Technology, 41(7/8), 60–61. Retrieved from

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=aph&AN=1248

04953&site=ehost-live&scope=site
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Pham, S., O'Sullivan, D., & Meyersohn, N. (2019, March 18). Facebook has Removed 1.5

Million Copies of the Mosque Attack Video. Retrieved from

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/17/business/facebook-youtube-twitter-new-zealand-

shooting/index.html

Wattles, J., & O'Sullivan, D. (2019, March 30). Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Calls for More

Regulation of the Internet. Retrieved from

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/30/tech/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-regulation/index.html

Woodruff, J. (2019, March 18). How Social Media Platforms Reacted to Viral Video of New

Zealand Shootings. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-social-

media-platforms-reacted-to-viral-video-of-new-zealand-shootings

Zelezny, J. D. (2011). Communications law: Liberties, restraints, and the modern media. Boston,

MA: Wadsworth.