ABSTRACT

Social media exhibits the core characteristics of emergent technologies. It is disruptive of established ways of organising social relations, is evolving at an exponential pace and its effects, including the production of new ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, are highly uncertain. Interest in understanding these effects has intensified in the context of fears over so-called ‘digital wildfire’, a policy construct referring to rapid propagation of harmful communications, particularly those involving children and other vulnerable social groups but also those threatening the integrity of the political process in liberal democracies. Even so, proponents of social media are anxious to protect its potential for enhancing freedom of speech and revitalising civil society through the redistribution of editorial powers to shape public debate and facilitate the democratic scrutiny and oversight of elites. This article reports findings of the ‘Digital Wildfire policy Delphi’, which asked key informants to consider the political and technical feasibility of regulating harmful social media communications and to forecast likely scenarios for their prospective governance. Key forecasts are that forms of enforcement are limited, stimulating ‘self-regulation’ will become increasingly important but, more controversially, the likelihood is that harm to vulnerable groups will be ‘accommodated’ in liberal democracies as a price to be paid for the perceived political and economic benefits of unmoderated social media. The article concludes with conjectures about future directions in the policing of social media and their implications for shaping the emerging research agenda.

摘要

社交媒体展现了新兴技术的核心特征。它破坏了建立社会关系的既定方式，正在以指数级的速度发展，其影响（包括生产新的“好”和“坏”）的不确定性很高。在担心所谓的“数字野火”的背景下，人们越来越了解这些影响，这是一种政策构造，指的是有害传播的迅速传播，特别是涉及儿童和其他弱势社会群体的传播，同时也威胁到政治完整性的传播。自由民主国家的进程。即便如此，社交媒体的支持者急于保护其通过重新分配编辑权来影响公众言论，促进民主审查和对精英人士的监督而增强言论自由和振兴公民社会的潜力。本文报告了“数字野火政策Delphi”的发现，该发现要求主要信息提供者考虑调节有害社交媒体传播的政治和技术可行性，并预测其潜在治理的可能方案。关键预测是强制执行的形式是有限的，刺激“自我调节”将变得越来越重要，但更有争议的是，在自由民主国家中，对弱势群体的伤害将被“包容”，这是为不加约束的社交媒体所带来的政治和经济利益所付出的代价。本文以对社交媒体维持治安的未来方向及其对形成新兴研究议程的影响的推测作为结尾。