Regulation, Good Practice, and Censorship

Regulation, Good Practice, and Censorship ♡

Regulation

- currently no regulatory body to monitor social media

- private businesses can't break Data Protection Act, eg by publishing clients personal details without permission

- hate speech is covered by law (applies to social media)

- includes: racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, islamophobia, antisemitism 

- Norway, influencers, actors, singers - law mandates they disclose when they've retouched or added a filter upon a photo 

terrorist attacks

- terrorist cells and individuals are uploading graphic content and share it via social media

- not illegal, but users can report (facebook/twitter) can take it down

- issue is response time - ISIS beheadings shared on social media, spread rapidly so authorities were unable to remove them 

self regulation

- users advised to comply with law through self-regulation

- they should have an awareness of what is and isn't illegal, and act accordingly 

regulatory bodies

- IPSO: monitor online and physical news and magazines - no control over private individual/businesses

- ASA: advise on online adverts, as can Ofcom, BBFC

- Online streaming and VoD (coupled with increasing piracy) make this problematic 

using social media at work

- employees look at social media to see if it supports their qualifications, to see if they have a professional online persona, what other people post about them

- CareerBuilder survey: 54% of employers said they chose not to hire a candidate based on content found on their social media profile

The Internet in North Korea

- use of smart phones and internet in North Korea is heavily monitored and censored

- People go to great risks getting their hands on illegal content thats not allowed in North Korea

- North Korea created their phone so that there is limited access to anything - all the apps they can use are ready loaded up on the phone - have heir own version of the ‘internet’ (intranet)

- Phones/Tablets take random screenshots of user activity

- Using any foreign internet/service not approved by the government is considered conspiracy - can get death penalty

- can’t open any files on a North Korean phone that aren’t either signed by the government, or created by the user

- phones monitor constantly - people would leave phones in empty rooms when talking bad about the government

- Kim Jong Un and former leaders names are made slightly bigger on web pages

Smuggling USBs and DVDs in Balloons

- North Korea defector (escapee) sent hot air balloons of USBs and DVDs over the South Korea - North Korea border as an act of protest - stopped in 2004 when things got serious

- escaped and his two uncles got executed based on crime of ‘association’

- Bribed the security guards with $5000 (100x the normal rate)

-Normal citizens do not get access to the "internet". That privilege is left to a select number in the country, known as elites, as well as some academics and scientists

- What they see is an internet that is so narrow and lacking in depth it resembles more an extravagant company intranet than the expansive global network those outside the country know it to be

- Beyond the Kwangmyong intranet, some North Koreans do have full unfiltered internet access

- However, it is believed this is restricted to just a few dozen families - most directly related to Kim Jong-un himself

- The Red Star operating system runs an adapted version of the Firefox browser, named Naenara, a title it shares with the country's online portal, which also has an English version

- Typical sites include news services - such as the Voice of Korea - and the official organ of the state, the Rodong Sinmun,

- anyone producing content for this internet must be careful

"The system they've set up is one that they can control and tear down if necessary," explains Mr Bruce.

-The system is called Kwangmyong, and is administered by the country's lone, state-run internet service provider

- According to Mr Bruce, it consists mainly of "message boards, chat functions, and state sponsored media". Unsurprisingly, there's no sign of Twitter

China

- China has some strict firewalls to prevent potential subversion of its regime

- Some internet searches are banned, and social media currently blocked include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Gmail, Youtube

- China has its own social media platforms - most widely-used and well-known is Weibo

- Weibo used for:

- Microblogging social network

- Compared to Twitter or Facebook

- Hosts over 400 million business pages

- News outlets and non-chines speaking celebrities use it to reach out to their Chinese fan base

- Weibo influencer campaigns

- Weibo advertising

- Weibo lottery 

- Cross-promotion

- Organic growth

Bias and Ideology 

- Marxist thought, society is seen to resemble a pyramid - ruling classes form only a small percentage of the population, and their position is highest

- educated workers, are propped up by the working classes

- Because there are so many people at the bottom of the stack, it’s important to keep them from revolting. This is really why the media exists, especially in terms of news, televisions, film, radio, the internet - its a distraction from the realities of existence

‘Gatekeepers’ control the flow of information from the ruling classes (the superstructure) to the proletariat (base structure). This creates the potential for bias. It exists in every society