More Data Security on Social Media Against Fake Content - Predictions 2021

This year, operators of social networks will have to ensure more data security for social media. Because the platforms have to be moderated more consistently to take up the fight against fake news and co. In the same way, they must take action against accounts that spread further harmful content and even harass other users.

Although the social media companies have already taken some measures against incorrect and problematic content on their platforms, these actions were too timid or came much too late. After all, the lack of moderation on social media platforms have already seriously damaged our information ecosystem.

Algorithms and People for More Data Security

The algorithms used by social networks are very effective at bringing users into contact with content that they would otherwise not have found. On the one hand, many of these mechanisms are harmless, but on the other hand, many people have come into contact with fake news and fake accounts. According to this, some have even been tricked into following conspiracy theories and even joining extremist groups.

Therefore, these recommendation algorithms should have been coupled with more moderation or data protection regulations to prevent the spread of harmful social media content. Because some digital threats could have been avoided: disinformation, fake accounts, coordinated content distribution, and targeted harassment of users.

Monitoring Social Media Against Fake Content

Although there is some monitoring in terms of data security on these platforms, it is not tailored to the number of users and the respective regions. This is why our company has been testing these systems for over a decade in a kind of beta phase and suffers from inadequate data security and data protection.

Regulations for More Data Security for Social Networks

In the meantime, social media companies could also run into problems on the regulatory front. For example, Facebook recently stated that EU rules on data transfer and data security would make life difficult for the company. This went as far as the consideration of withdrawing their services from the EU.

Also, this year the US could revise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a US federal law. So far, this regulation has freed the social media platforms from liability for what users post on them. However, should Section 230 be changed or repealed, operators of social networks can be held responsible for the distribution of harmful content.

Likewise, companies will have to change their way of working to avoid future legal violations if the EU actually enforces the data protection regulations in social media.

There are now many suggestions for automated moderation for social media content. However, most of these instruments struggle with either relatively high false-positive or false-negative odds. Because content will be published in a variety of formats, such as text, audio, video, and images. Accordingly, all of these formats require different analytical approaches. Specifically, this means that the work cannot be completely automated to understand the nuances that only humans can grasp.

In the future, some of the moderation work will certainly be transferred to algorithms and machine learning mechanisms. Nevertheless, in a large part of the decision-making processes, people have to have a say when it comes to successful data security or data protection on social media platforms.

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