Social​
Impacting Globalization
Media
It is important to recognize that social media is not a white horse since it can do enough bad as it does good. In the same way social media was used during the Arab Spring as a way for uniting thousands of people to protest a dictatorial regime, it can be used in the West by youths to gather in order to loot and burn shops. In the same way people used social media to spread their belief in political freedom, others can use social media to spread their messages of bigotry, intolerance and hate. In other cases, graphic videos are posted online that contains content that other may view as offensive or hateful. The question then becomes whether these videos have a right to be YouTube in light of their vicious nature and who decides what the public should or should not see.
As cities in the United Kingdom burned, youth were on social media networks such planning the next set of riots. Although social media was not the cause of the riots, it allowed rebellious youth to organize the riots and evade police. The same reasons that made social media effective in Middle East were transported to the streets of the UK. A poster on Twitter stated, "Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS." An hour later, hundreds of youth showed up at that location to trash, burn and loot shops.
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It is for these reasons that British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested blocking users using social media to promote and organize social unrest. This is in stark contrast to his government's policies during the Arab Spring that called for the need for social media to be open to the public. This raises the debate about whether social media should be censored in some cases and what constitutes social unrest.
In September 2012, a 14 minute YouTube trailer for a film titled "Innocence of Muslims" sparked worldwide protests in the Muslim community. This film depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a violent killer, womanizer and child molester. This video exemplifies how social media can be used negatively to propagate disrespect and hate towards a certain religion/group of people. Due to the ability of people around the world to access social media, Muslims could view for themselves how their religion was defamed. Anti-American protests then erupted in countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Libya. Some even blamed this film for the storming of the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya by militants where four Americans were killed, including Ambassador Chris Stephens. Google, the owner of YouTube, then came under immense pressure to remove the video from its servers. In spite of pressure from the U.S. government, Google decided that the film did not violate its terms of use and the video had every right to remain online.
The role of social media was once again brought to the forefront of the news when a video showing a Syrian rebel leader carving out the heart of a Assad soldier popped up on YouTube. Outrage against this grotesque act spawned bewildering discussions as to whether this video belonged on a social media website. Most people believe that the video should be banned but others played devil's advocate by stating that the video does have the right to remain on YouTube and it should be up to the viewer to decide whether they would like to view the video or not. People from all over the world weighed in on the debate, thus displaying the global nature of the video itself and of the Syrian Civil War. ​This video, although heinous in nature, again sparked the debate as to whether YouTube should remove a video just because it is offensive to some. I believe that we use social media at our own risk and from time to time, we will encounter content that goes against our morals. However, I do not believe that we should go around censoring every video that someone complains about.
