What’s next for social media companies? The digital regulatory scene in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-95
Author(s):  
Aslı Tunç
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Law ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
The Law ◽  
Draft Bill ◽  
Media Company

In the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, on 9 April 2020, a draft bill was presented to fight against the spread of COVID-19 in Turkey. Eight articles were buried deep in the proposed legislation, which mostly included economic measures and aid packages, directly targeting any social media company that had a platform accessed by over one million users daily. Although the articles on social media were dropped from the parliamentary schedule on 14 April 2020 to make way for more urgent bills on the economy and health, the uncertainty regarding social media companies’ situation in the country remained. Then, on 29 July 2020, the new social media law, officially ‘The Law on Making Amendments to the Law on Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Combating Crimes Committed by Means of Such Publication’, numbered 7253 was adopted by the parliament. This article approaches this issue from the perspective of social media companies, specifically Facebook and Twitter, and analyses the post-Coronavirus digital scene and public policy attempts from the corporate point of view.

scholarly journals Terrorist Speech under Bills C-51 and C-59 and the Othman Hamdan Case: The Continued Incoherence of Canada’s Approach

2019 ◽  
pp. 203
Author(s):  
Kent Roach
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Fundamental Freedoms

It is argued that neither the approach taken to terrorist speech in Bill C-51 nor Bill C-59 is satisfactory. A case study of the Othman Hamdan case, including his calls on the Internet for “lone wolves” “swiftly to activate,” is featured, along with the use of immigration law after his acquittal for counselling murder and other crimes. Hamdan’s acquittal suggests that the new Bill C-59 terrorist speech offence and take-down powers based on counselling terrorism offences without specifying a particular terrorism offence may not reach Hamdan’s Internet postings. One coherent response would be to repeal terrorist speech offences while making greater use of court-ordered take-downs of speech on the Internet and programs to counter violent extremism. Another coherent response would be to criminalize the promotion and advocacy of terrorist activities (as opposed to terrorist offences in general in Bill C-51 or terrorism offences without identifying a specific terrorist offence in Bill C-59) and provide for defences designed to protect fundamental freedoms such as those under section 319(3) of the Criminal Code that apply to hate speech. Unfortunately, neither Bill C-51 nor Bill C-59 pursues either of these options. The result is that speech such as Hamdan’s will continue to be subject to the vagaries of take-downs by social media companies and immigration law.

What is Indian in Indian English? Markers of Indianness in Hindi-Speaking Users’ Social Media Communication

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Dąbrowska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Gender Preferences ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Classical Study ◽  
Global Status

Public communication in the contemporary world constitutes a multifaceted phenomenon. The Internet offers unlimited possibilities of contact and public expression, locally and globally, yet exerts its power, inducing use of the Internet lingo, loosening language norms, and encourages the use of a lingua franca, English in particular. This leads to linguistic choices that are liberating for some and difficult for others on ideological grounds, due to the norms of the discourse community, or simply because of insufficient language skills and linguistic means available. Such choices appear to particularly characterise post-colonial states, in which the co-existence of multiple local tongues with the language once imperially imposed and now owned by local users makes the web of repertoires especially complex. Such a case is no doubt India, where the use of English alongside the nationally encouraged Hindi and state languages stems not only from its historical past, but especially its present position enhanced not only by its local prestige, but also by its global status too, and also as the primary language of Online communication. The Internet, however, has also been recognised as a medium that encourages, and even revitalises, the use of local tongues, and which may manifest itself through the choice of a given language as the main medium of communication, or only a symbolic one, indicated by certain lexical or grammatical features as identity markers. It is therefore of particular interest to investigate how members of such a multilingual community, represented here by Hindi users, convey their cultural identity when interacting with friends and the general public Online, on social media sites. This study is motivated by Kachru’s (1983) classical study, and, among others, a recent discussion concerning the use of Hinglish (Kothari and Snell, eds., 2011). This paper analyses posts by Hindi users on Facebook (private profiles and fanpages) and Twitter, where personalities of users are largely known, and on YouTube, where they are often hidden, in order to identify how the users mark their Indian identity. Investigated will be Hindi lexical items, grammatical aspects and word order, cases of code-switching, and locally coloured uses of English words and spelling conventions, with an aim to establish, also from the point of view of gender preferences, the most dominating linguistic patterns found Online.

Use of Facebook for Corporate Reporting

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-48
Author(s):  
Harmandeep Singh ◽  
Arwinder Singh
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Corporate Reporting ◽  
Business Information ◽  
Use Of Social Media

From the last decade, the Internet has become a new way of communication. Business firms use the internet for communicating with their stakeholder and expanding their business. Nowadays, in the complex environment of competition, companies just don't want to communicate the information rather they require feedback and response for the particular information. This kind of problem is resolved by the use of social media. Disclosing business information through social media companies get to know about the behavior of investors towards their particular information. Thus, the present paper aims to examine the extent of corporate reporting on Facebook. The results show that 64% companies have Facebook profile. Further, it was found that most of the companies cultivate relationship by presenting information on disclosure and involvement. It was revealed that, mostly companies presented the information on marketing and ignored the financial, social and governance components.

scholarly journals Deconstructing the Seven Cs of Social Media: A Summative Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (03) ◽  
pp. 179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonica Rautela ◽  
Tarun Kumar Singhal
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Capital Social ◽  
Firm Resources ◽  
Social Culture ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
The World ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
The Relationship

<p>One of the defining technological forces which are reshaping world today is the easy accessibility to the Internet. The Internet has changed the way people communicate with each other. Social media whose development was first marshaled by Web 2.0, has revolutionized the entire world of communication. The most intriguing fact is that the world of social media is constantly changing. The platforms which are topping the charts today may not be tomorrow. Also, it can be observed that the power has shifted from the hands of marketers to the hands of users which in turn have empowered users. The objective of the present study is to explore the different facets of social media in detail. These facets form the base for the world of social media and can be referred to as the 7 Cs of social media. These seven Cs are - content, community, conversation, capital (social), culture, collaboration, and conversion respectively. With an enhanced understanding of all these Cs of social media, the study proposes a conceptual model depicting the relationship between these seven Cs and social media. Companies should analyze each of these Cs in detail and design their social media strategies accordingly. This will not only assure the efficient and effective use of social media but also will help managers to decide where and how to allot firm resources in a better fashion.</p>

scholarly journals Extreme Speech, Democratic Deliberation, and Social Media

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey W. Howard
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Alternative Mechanism ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Moral Responsibilities ◽  
The Law ◽  
Democratic Discourse

Social media are now central sites of democratic discourse among citizens. But are some contributions to social media too extreme to be permitted? This entry considers the permissibility of suppressing extreme speech on social media, such as terrorist propaganda and racist hate speech. It begins by considering the argument that such restrictions on speech would wrong democratic citizens, violating their freedom of expression. It proceeds to investigate the moral responsibilities of social media companies to suppress extreme speech, and whether these ought to be enforced through the law. Finally, it explores an alternative mechanism for combatting extreme speech on social media—counter-speech—and evaluates its prospects.

The Problem of Platform Law

2020 ◽  
pp. 973-994
Author(s):  
Molly K. Land
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Technological Design ◽  
User Choice ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
The Right

The internet would seem to be an ideal platform for fostering norm diversity. The very structure of the internet resists centralized governance, while the opportunities it provides for the “long tail” of expression means even voices with extremely small audiences can find a home. In reality, however, the governance of online speech looks much more monolithic. This is largely a result of private “lawmaking” activity by internet intermediaries. Increasingly, social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are developing what David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur for the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, has called “platform law.” Through a combination of community standards, contract, technological design, and case-specific practice, social media companies are developing “Facebook law” and “Twitter law,” displacing the laws of national jurisdictions. Using the example of content moderation, this chapter makes several contributions to the literature. First, it expands upon the idea of “platform law” to consider the broad array of mechanisms that companies use to control user behavior and mediate conflicts. Second, using human rights law as a foundation, the chapter makes the case for meaningful technological design choices that enable user autonomy. Users should be able to make explicit choices about who and what they want to hear online. It also frames user choice in terms of the right to hear, not the right to speak, as a way of navigating the tension presented by hate speech and human rights without resorting to platform law that sanitizes speech for everyone.

Demographics, Design, and Free Speech

2019 ◽  
pp. 150-169
Author(s):  
Soraya Chemaly
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Interactions ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Harmful Effects

The toxicity of online interactions presents unprecedented challenges to traditional free speech norms. The scope and amplification properties of the internet give new dimension and power to hate speech, rape and death threats, and denigrating and reputation-destroying commentary. Social media companies and internet platforms, all of which regulate speech through moderation processes every day, walk the fine line between censorship and free speech with every decision they make, and they make millions a day. This chapter will explore how a lack of diversity in the tech industry affects the design and regulation of products and, in so doing, disproportionately negatively affects the free speech of traditionally marginalized people. During the past year there has been an explosion of research about, and public interest in, the tech industry’s persistent diversity problems. At the same time, the pervasiveness of online hate, harassment, and abuse has become evident. These problems come together on social media platforms that have institutionalized and automated the perspectives of privileged male experiences of speech and violence. The tech sector’s male dominance and the sex segregation and hierarchies of its workforce result in serious and harmful effects globally on women’s safety and free expression.

scholarly journals The Limits of Commercialized Censorship in China

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Miller
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Hegemonic Discourse ◽  
Sina Weibo ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Large Databases ◽  
Principal Agent Problem ◽  
The Government ◽  
Media Company

Despite massive investment in China’s censorship program, internet platforms in China are rife with criticisms of the government and content that seeks to organize opposition to the ruling Communist Party. Past works have attributed this “openness” to deliberate government strategy or lack of capacity. Most, however, do not consider the role of private social media companies, to whom the state delegates information controls. I suggest that the apparent incompleteness of censorship is largely a result of principal-agent problems that arise due to misaligned incentives of government principals and private media company agents. Using a custom dataset of annotated leaked documents from a social media company, Sina Weibo, I find that 16% of directives from the government are disobeyed by Sina Weibo and that disobedience is driven by Sina’s concerns about censoring more strictly than competitor Tencent. I also find that the fragmentation inherent in the Chinese political system exacerbates this principal agent problem. I demonstrate this by retrieving actual censored content from large databases of hundreds of millions of Sina Weibo posts and measuring the performance of Sina Weibo’s censorship employees across a range of events. This paper contributes to our understanding of media control in China by uncovering how market competition can lead media companies to push back against state directives and increase space for counter-hegemonic discourse.

scholarly journals The Power Shift from Government to Organized Crime in Kyrgyzstan

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-155
Author(s):  
Erlan Bakiev
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Small Business Owners ◽  
Power Shift ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
Organized Crime Groups ◽  
Internet And Social Media

AbstractOrganized crime (OC) groups in Kyrgyzstan have reached a level where they are competing with governmental authorities and institutions. Leaders of OC groups can assign members of their groups into law enforcement positions and parliament. It is safe to claim that the absence of rule of law and legal gaps encourage organized crime groups to flourish. From an economic point of view, privatization and capitalization of the economic system in the process of democratization have been in the interest and favor of the development of criminal organizations. Organized crime gangs can easily fill their chests by benefiting from the legal gaps. For instance, all the jewelry store owners at the major markets in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan pay fees to an OC gang for their safety and security. Small business owners have been taken under control by organized crime to resolve economic disputes or just because they are in their area of control. Moreover, gangs and groups operating in the South Kyrgyzstan, as well as in Talas and Bishkek, deal with drug trafficking. The cultural aspect of this issue focuses on the importance of the clan ties and network connections in Kyrgyzstan and its use by organized crime. The networking used by the OC also includes utilization of the Internet and social media, consequently it became difficult to counter them during the process of globalization and the whole of society being integrated with the internet and social media, the fight against organized crime has become more difficult. Challenging existing socio-cultural structures, to increase law enforcement and combat clan-based subculture and informal law practices, such as the “thieves” “laws” and “brotherhood hierarchies” of organized crime, have been an almost impossible endeavor over the past 30 years. Consequently, breaking the network of OC and destroying its nationwide functions is a challenge, not only in Kyrgyzstan but in many post-soviet countries.

scholarly journals THE ATTITUDE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TOWARDS CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 515-524
Author(s):  
Ahmed Alshetti ◽  
Muneer Al Mubarak
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Survey Method ◽  
Celebrity Endorsements ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Business Opportunities ◽  
Knowledge And Practice ◽  
Students Attitudes

Purpose of the study: The study aims to identify the factors that influence students’ attitudes when celebrity endorsements are used through social media. It seeks to determine how effective endorsements are from the consumers’ point of view. Methodology: A study model was developed to show the effect of different factors on students’ attitudes. A quantitative approach was used for data collection to support the model. This study employed a survey method using a questionnaire to gather information from participants. Main findings: The findings show celebrity characteristics and social media advertisements affect students’ attitudes. The results were positive for students’ attitude towards celebrity endorsements through social media. Applications of the study: The study provides insights into how businesses should plan marketing campaigns and influence students’ attitudes towards celebrity endorsements through social media. Companies are encouraged to use social networks to track and respond to the opinions of their customers in a timely manner. Novelty/Originality of this study: There is a shortage of literature that is associated with celebrity endorsements through social media. This study aims to fill in the gap in knowledge and practice by identifying business opportunities and optimizing available marketing tools that can be used in order to gain a better image.

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