Social Media:
1. How social media prevents civil discourse and promotes social divisions
1.1 According to a 2021 YouGov survey conducted for CNA among 1,055 respondents, 64
per cent indicated that they have observed increased polarization of views online in
Singapore in the last five years.
1.2The YouGov survey( same one in 2.1) found that while 65 percent of respondents think
people with vastly different views can engage in civil and polite conversation online, only
53 per cent of respondents had seen it happen.
1.3 In a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, regarding the issues of
‘Discussing politics on social media with people they disagree with’, 59% of respondents
stated they find the experience ‘stressful and frustrating’ which could imply a lack of ability
to acknowledge other opinions and thus a lack of ability to engage in civil discourse.
1.4 According to the same survey in 5.41, 53% of respondents stated that they felt that
the political conversations they see on social media are ‘less respectful’ than in other
places where politics may be discussed. 49% also felt that the political conversations on
social media were ‘less civil’.
1.5“Our public figures and role models in society need to model that behaviour and say,
hey we can have a civil conversation across different points of view. We can agree to
disagree and we don't have to persuade each other and that's fine. There’s no shame in
that,”
“It doesn't mean that every conversation has to lead to an outcome where one person's view
prevails, because that's the correct view. I think this is a big problem in Singapore.”
Source: Mr. Leon Perera, MP (WP- Aljunied) told CNA that a danger is people becoming
“incapable of having a reasonable discourse”.
1.6 “People are more exposed to different viewpoints from around the world. People have
also gotten more comfortable with asserting their opinions on social media platforms. This
convergence of multiple factors has actually led to greater expression of political views in the
online space.”.
Source: Lim Sun Sun, Professor of Communication and Technology, SUTD.
1.7 “Many people in the boomer category (people born in the 1950s and 60s) are very
liberal, just like there are young people who have very right-wing, conservative viewpoints,
possibly because of religious beliefs. The more meaningful variable to think about would be
education.”
Source: Prof Lim Sun Sun, arguing against age as an important factor in influencing people’s
viewpoints.
1.8 An example of the consequences of the polarisation of society would be on the 6th of
January 2021, when the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a mob, which included many
supporters of former U.S. president, Donald Trump. This was likely in opposition to
Trump’s election loss in 2020 to Joe Biden. There were even discussions of revolution and
civil war on social media sites, like Parler, before the event.
3. Impacts of Social Media
3.1 Social Media Activism
3.11 "Activism on Twitter is easy: It takes a couple of seconds to attack someone or circulate
a petition to have the person fired or ostracised,"
Source: Richard Ford, a law professor at Stanford University agrees that ‘some of the
social media activism is constructive and legitimate" but also warns of "reflexive campaigns
and crusades" online.
3.12 An example of a ‘reflexive campaign’ would be ‘Shang Chi’ actor Simu Liu. He was
accused of being misogynistic and racist due to the leak of his Reddit account. He received
hate from netizens online and was demanded to be removed from the film. However, the
context from his messages later showed that he was innocent of all accusations, but given
the time such clarification took, public attention had already diverted away from this
incident and many continued believing Mr Liu to be racist and misogynistic. This
3.13 "We're no longer in a cultural moment where people who are treated unfairly can't
speak back to regressive and toxic opinions," "If a public figure wants to cancel transgender
people, there is no reason in the world that they can't be cancelled in return,"
Source: Lisa Nakamura, professor at the University of Michigan
3.14 Keith Hampton, professor of media and information at Michigan State University, says
that if the movement is intentionally about trying to harm people, then it's "less positive"
3.15. "There's increasingly a sort of 'us versus them' attitude where it's seen as justified and
even necessary to be just as dogmatic and unyielding as one's ideological enemies."
Source: Ford
3.16. The #MeToo movement is a social media movement seeking to raise awareness on
the issues of sexual abuse and sexual harassment against women. The movement gained
prominence in 2017 in response to reports of sexual abuse by film producer Harvey
Weinstein, and the hashtag was circulated more than 19 million times from October 2017 to
October 2018, according to the Pew Research Center
3.17 In the field of climate activism, some, like the environmental organisation
Greenpeace, use social media to raise awareness about environmental issues including
climate change, deforestation, and ocean conservation. Others, like Extinction Rebellion
and Fridays for Future, use social media to organise protests to call for action to counter
climate change.
3.18 The #Blacklivesmatter movement, started in 2013 helped shed light on systemic
racism towards African Americans and protest against police brutality, racial profiling and
racial inequality in the US criminal justice system, providing much-needed representation
for marginalized folk. The hashtag has appeared in more than 44 million tweets from 2013
to 2023, according to the Pew Research Center
3.19 The Idle No More movement, started in 2012 in Canada, is a protest movement that
seeks to empower indigenous communities to protect their culture and environment from
destruction and exploitation by governments and corporations. The movement uses social
media heavily. At the height of the movement between December 2012 and January 2013,
743,365 tweets with at least one #IdleNoMore hashtag were shared on Twitter’s public
timeline, according to an article by researchers at the University of British Columbia.
3.2 Social Media Disinformation
3.21 According to the 2023 Digital News Report by the University of Oxford, 56% of
respondents say they worry about identifying the difference between what is real and fake on
the internet when it comes to news, which shows that the issue of social media
disinformation is a pressing one.
3.22. An example would be Donald Trump’s Twitter Account which perpetuated
misinformation about COVID-19, stating that it was a hoax and that masks and vaccines
were useless. Many Trump supporters rallied behind the ‘Anti-Vaxx’ movement, believing
that vaccines cause autism and other ailments. Trump’s misinformation likely brought about
many unnecessary deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. since many refused the vaccines vital
to protecting them from COVID-19.
3.23 According to a 2020 Straits Times article, a Singaporean man was convicted in court
for posting false information on Singapore’s Covid-19 circuit breaker measures on a
Facebook group called “Taxiuncle”, saying that he had “intel” that SG would purportedly
impose extended measures on April 18.
3.2(b) Social Media Manipulation
3.2(b)1 A joint investigation by news sites The Guardian and Forbidden Stories exposed
the existence of ‘Team Jorge’ in February 2023. ‘Team Jorge’ is a private outfit of Israeli
contractors that specialises in, among other things, social media disinformation campaigns
using social media bot farms’. ‘Team Jorge’’s leader claims the group has been involved in
33 presidential-level campaigns, with about 27 being successes.
Another group, Percepto International launched a smear campaign against the International
Committee of the Red Cross’s mission in Burkina Faso, on behalf of the government of
Burkina Faso. This was exposed by Forbidden Stories in February 2023 as well.
3.2(b)2 According to a 2020 New York Times Article, Facebook had allowed disinformation
to spread in a smear campaign by the Cambodian government against a prominent
Buddhist monk who champions human rights, forcing him to flee the country in fear.
3.3 Social Issues
3.3(a) Impacts on mental health (Anxiety, Body image issues, self-esteem,
cyberbullying)
3.3(a)1. A 2019 Griffith University study examined the social media habits of 303
undergraduate men and 198 high school boys in Australia for three years and found, in part,
that exposure to images of archetypal masculine physiques was linked to low body esteem in
young men and increased desire to become more muscular.
3.3(a)2. In 2021, internal research by Meta found that Instagram made body image issues
worse for one in three girls. In another Meta study of teenagers in the UK and the US, more
than 40% of Instagram users who said they felt “unattractive” said the feeling began while
using the app.
3.3(a)3. The third wave of the body positivity movement started in 2012, using social media
platforms like Instagram to spread its ideals. Influencers like Tess Holliday have used
hashtags, like #EffYourBeautyStandards and #CelebrateMySize on Instagram to encourage the
celebration and self-love of all body shapes.
3.3(a)4. According to the National Center for Health Research, 13% of kids ages 12-17 report
depression and 32% report anxiety. 25% of 18 to 25-year-olds report mental illness. These age
groups report high usage of social media
3.3(a)5. A 2017 study by the National University of Singapore found that the comorbidity rates of
SNS addiction and affective disorder among college students in Singapore were 21% for
depression and 27.7% for anxiety.
3.3(a)6. A study released in 2023 by the Pew Research Center found that 46% of teens aged 13
to 17 in the United States have experienced cyberbullying in 2022. The impacts of Cyberbullying
on its victims include low self-esteem, depression and anxiety
3.3(b) Perpetuation of stereotypes
4. Regulation of Social Media
1.1. “In places like Myanmar, where activists note that ‘Facebook is the internet’, companies
lack the linguistic and cultural expertise to distinguish a racist word from a normal one. As a
result, they may overregulate, censoring the good with the bad”
Source: Professor Davi Kayes, University of California, Irvine School of Law and former UN
Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of expression, wrote in a commentary.
4.2 Materials that could be submitted as evidence in criminal investigations could be
wrongfully taken down. Some examples, cited by Human Rights Watch, include
Chemical Weapons attacks in Syria and Police abuse in the U.S.
4.3 “If they are moderating badly when there are relatively few legal obligations to
moderate… then if you say to them, you must make the decision faster, and you will pay a
higher price if you make an error, then it is fair that they will err only on the side of caution”
Source: Mr Cory Doctorow, computer scientist and a special advisor to the Electronic
Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.
Vvvvvvvvvvvvv v 4.5 “In a democracy, individuals need to be able to hold their
government to account in a meaningful way,"
Source: Ms Joan Hoey, director of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, on
why governments should not have any control over Social Media
4.6 According to the Straits Times, Facebook said it had acted on 22.1 million pieces of hate
speech content between July and September 2020, 13 times more than the content it
removed in the last quarter of 2017
4.7 According to the Straits Times, Twitter took down 2.9 million tweets in the second half of
2018, more than double the amount a year earlier
4.8 According to the Straits Times, Facebook employed about 15,000 content moderators
globally in 2021, while Twitter employed 1500 in the same year.
4.9 "They advocate self-regulation first, but also welcome regulation if they can use
compliance to avoid liability.". (1) "Governments are the first choice to impose regulation
because they represent the societies of the countries."
Source: Mr Benjamin Ang, Senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
noting possible self-interest on the part of big tech firms. He added, however, that no entity
should be above the law.
4.10 "Facebook is not a publisher, but rather a distribution channel. In order to responsibly
check the veracity of content you need editors - and Facebook doesn't have any."
Source: Mr Matthias Dofner, CEO of German publishing house Axel Springer
4.11 The European Union, reacting to a wave of racist attacks in its member countries,
agreed to an online Code of Conduct in May 2016 with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and
Microsoft to fight online hate speech, which includes commitments that require firms to
identify and remove hate speech within 24 hours.
4.12 In 2018, the US Congress added communications promoting sex trafficking to the list
of content that is exempt from immunity. New laws that kicked in on April 11, 2018, make
Internet companies liable for users who engage in sex-trafficking crimes.
4.13 The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, which came into effect in
2019, was designed to allow authorities to respond to fake news or false information
through a graduated process of enforcing links to fact-checking statements, censorship of
websites or assets on social media platforms, and criminal charges. As of June 2023,
according to the POFMA office, POFMA was used in 45 separate cases, one of which was in
May 2023 when the online news site The Online Citizen was ordered to put up correction
notices after falsely reporting that police officers had taunted an elderly woman instead of
helping her.
5. Spread of negative ideologies on social media
5.1 Spread of Misogyny:
5.11 Andrew Tate is an infamous social media personality on the social media app
TikTok, known for his misogynistic views that are expressed in his content. He is
known to have said that women belong in the home, can’t drive, and are a man’s
property. As of 6 August 2022, clips tagged with Andrew Tate's name have been
watched over a billion times within August 2022 alone. This demonstrates the large
spread of misogynistic content on social media (TikTok has about 834.3 million active
users as of August 2023)
5.2 Spread of terrorism ideology:
5.21 In December 2022, an 18-year-old Singaporean was detained by Singapore’s
Internal Security Department (ISD). He had been radicalised by YouTube videos made
by Zakir Naik, a foreign extremist preacher of Islam, which led him to conceptualise
plans to declare Coney Island an ISIS province and plans to attack various places in
Singapore, like the Haji Muhammad Salleh Mosque. This has happened before. Just a
month before, a 38-year-old MOE teacher was detained. He had undergone similar
radicalisation and had planned to go to Gaza to fight for Hamas, a terrorist group.
5.22 The Christchurch mosque shooter made extensive use of social media to spread
his racist ideologies. He posted on an online forum known as 4chan, calling others to
take up arms against Muslims. He live-streamed the actual shooting on Facebook and
published a self-written manifesto that detailed the need to purge the Muslims.
Disturbingly, there were people in the comments who were assenting to his views
and showing support for him.
5.3 Spread of Xenophobia:
5.31
5.32 According to a study by researchers from the Nanyang Technological University
found that respondents who used social media as their main source of news (and
had a higher risk perception of COVID-19) had higher levels of f stereotypes and
prejudice against Chinese immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
5.4 Spread of conspiracies:
5.41 Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars convinced viewers that the Sandy
Hook massacre was faked, causing the Pozner family who lost their six-year-old son
to receive multiple death threats, relocate several times and be unable to visit their
son’s grave.
5.42 QAnon is a well-known conspiracy theory, accusing prominent figures from
U.S. President Joe Biden to Pope Francis, to actor Tom Hanks of being part of a
secret ‘cabal of Satan-worshiping paedophiles’. According to a 2020 Reuters article,
a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) found that the number of users
discussing QAnon on Twitter and Facebook surged in 2020, with membership of
QAnon groups on Facebook growing by 120% in March.
(In response, Twitter in July 2020 said it would stop recommending QAnon content
and accounts in a crackdown expected to affect about 150,000 accounts. It also said
it would block QAnon URLs and permanently suspend QAnon accounts violating its
rules. Other Social Media sites, like Facebook, have announced crackdowns on
QAnon as well)
5.5 Spread of Racism:
5.51 During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian hate online spiked. According to
the CyberSmile Foundation, anti-Asian hate increased by 900% on Twitter during
the pandemic.
5.52 In January 2023, in the early days of Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition,
researchers from Rutgers University highlighted that the use of the racist “N” word
on the platform increased by almost 500 per cent within 12 hours compared to the
previous average, according to a 2023 Forbes article
6. Fake News & the Reliability of Media in the Current Age of AI
1. As of August 2023, NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation,
has identified 452 “Unreliable AI-generated news and information websites”
(UAINs) spanning 14 languages.
2. On 2 April 2023, CelebritiesDeaths.com, a website which posts generic
obituaries and news on significant figures who have purportedly died,
published an article that falsely declared that U.S. President Joe Biden had
passed away that day. It became clear that the article was written by an A.I.,
specifically ChatGPT from OpenAI, due to the existence of this part at the
bottom of the article “I’m sorry, I cannot complete this prompt as it goes
against OpenAI’s use case policy on generating misleading content. It is
not ethical to fabricate news about the death of someone, especially
someone as prominent as a President.”.
3. In August 2023, NewsGuard prompted two of the largest A.I. generative
models, OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 and Google’s Bard, with a random sample of 100
myths. ChatGPT- 4 generated 98 out of the 100 myths, while Google Bard
generated 80 out of 100.
These results mirrored those of the same exercise conducted earlier in the
year (ChatGPT-4 in March 2023, Bard in April 2023), where ChatGPT
responded with false and misleading claims for 100 out of the 100
narratives, while Bard spread misinformation 76 times out of 100.
4. On 24 May 2023, a fake image of an explosion at the Pentagon, the
headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense was circulated on social
media platforms like Twitter. This caused a 10-minute-long dip in the stock
market. Experts say the viral image had telltale signs of an AI-generated
forgery.
5. In May 2023, the White House announced a large-scale testing of the
trust and safety of the large generative AI models at the DEFCON 31
conference beginning Aug. 10 2023. The purpose of this large-scale testing
is to enable “thousands of community partners and AI experts” to
evaluate these models and likely to identify issues for A.I. companies to
fix.
Media in general
1. Censorship of books and the effects of censorship on readership 7.1 In 2022,
The American Library Association (ALA) documented 1,269 demands to censor library
books and resources, nearly double the number (729) in 2021.
7.2 According to the international research data and analytics group Wordsrated, as of
2023, India historically accounts for the most book bans in the world (11.11% of all book
bans recorded), followed by China (8.99%) and Singapore (8.47%).
7.3 According to Statista in 2023, the subject matter of book titles banned in American
schools and classrooms are: 1. Themes or instances of Physical or violent abuse (44% of all
books banned), 2. Topics on health and wellbeing for students ( 38%), 3.Themes of grief and
death ( 30%), 4. Characters of colour or themes of race and racism ( 30%), 5. LGBTQ+
themes or characters (26%).
7.4 Historically, the censorship of books has increased the demand for the books
being censored: The name of this phenomenon is the “Streisand effect”. According to
Britannica, the Streisand effect is defined as a “phenomenon in which an attempt to censor,
hide, or otherwise draw attention away from something only serves to attract more attention
to it.”. This effect is observed multiple times during the book censorship
7.41 In 2011, an Indian nationalist organisation filed a lawsuit against Penguin India for
publishing The Hindus: An Alternative History, written by American Indologist Wendy
Doniger, accusing the book of being "riddled with heresies" and that the contents are
offensive to Hindus. Although Penguin India gave in and agreed to withdraw the book and
destroy any existing copies, it was found that the sales of the book had increased after the
ban and that bookshops continued to secretly sell the book, according to the Indian
newspaper The Hindu in February 2014.
7.42 In 2018, ‘George’, a book about a transgender child, was banned by the public
school systems in the U.S. city of Wichita. The justification used for this banning was that
the book included sexual references and language considered to be inappropriate for
children. The district also obstructed attempts by librarians to include the book in their
collections, by withholding funding to buy the book.
Subsequently, the author organised a Twitter (or X) campaign to raise funds to buy enough
copies of the book to supply all the schools in the affected district. The campaign reached its
funding goal within the same hour it was released, symbolising the immense support the
book had.
2. Changing the face of media censorship
8.1. In Venezuela, in 2013, the country’s most circulated newspaper, Ultimas Noticias, was
bought by anonymous buyers. Subsequently, a new editor demanded ‘politically motivated
changes’ in an investigative story about anti-government protests in Venezuela in 2014, that
favoured the Venezuelan government. In response, Tamoa Calzadilla, the newspaper’s
investigations editor, resigned in protest, along with many other staff.
To quote Tamoa Calzadilla, “This is not your classic censorship, where they put a
soldier in the door of the newspaper and assault the journalists…Instead, they buy
the newspaper, they sue the reporters and drag them into court, they eavesdrop on
your communications and then broadcast them on state television. This is censorship
for the 21st century.”
8.2 In China, in 2013, President Xi Jinping established the Cyberspace Administration
of China (CAC), from a subgroup of China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO),
the country’s main censorship agency. The creation of a separate body to conduct internet
censorship could imply the Chinese Government’s censorship efforts were evolving to
tackle the internet, which become ubiquitous in the 21st century
8.3 According to an article by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable
Development (CIRSD), present-day censorship is practised by the progressives to silence
the political right for their conservative views, a far cry from the Cold War era of
McCarthyism, where the political right suppressed and censored the political left, for their
communist sympathising.
Players and their Motivations
1. Government
1.1 Public Education
1.11 In 2021, the Singapore government released Get Your Shot, Steady Pom Pi
Pi!, a colourful, raucous Singlish-inflected rap music video, to educate Singaporeans
on the importance of getting vaccinated and urge them to get vaccinated as soon as
possible. The video was released during Singapore's COVID-19 vaccination
campaign.
1.12 The U.S. government has implemented PSAs in many American cartoon Shows. An
example would be the ‘Sonic Says’ segments in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
cartoon, which aims to teach kids about various topics from sharing to sexual harassment.
1.2 Shaping Public Opinions.
1.21 The U.S. government has in place The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The
campaign’s goal is ‘to educate and enable America’s youth to reject illicit drugs’. According to a
2010 report to the U.S. Congress about the campaign’s effectiveness, it was reported ‘Teens that
were aware of the Campaign held significantly stronger anti-drug beliefs than those teens that
were unaware of the Campaign.’ and that the willingness of parents to take action to prevent
drug abuse by their teens at home had increased.
1.22 The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) has launched the It’s SG, It’s So Good Campaign to
convince Singaporeans to buy more local produce as part of its 30 by 30 initiative to produce
30% of Singapore's nutritional needs locally by 2030.
1.23 In August 2023, The Witness, a Russian state-sponsored film about the War in Ukraine
premiered. The film aimed to portray Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as ‘just’ and to rally support
for the invasion among the Russian Public. This movie is part of the Kremlin’s endeavour to
boost the production of movies glorifying Moscow’s actions in Ukraine.
1.3 Spread Information
1.31 U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a series of radio addresses between 1933
and 1944, popularly known as ‘fireside chats’. During these ‘fireside chats’, President
Roosevelt explained his policies, such as his famous New Deal Policy, directly to ordinary
Americans.
1.32 During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Multi-Ministry Task Force, the government body
responsible for coordinating Singapore’s efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, held
regular press conferences to update Singaporeans about Singapore's COVID-19 situation
and announce new government measures to contain the virus.
2. Businesses
2.1 Profit-making
2.11 According to Forbes in 2023, as of 5 May 2023, the world’s largest media company,
Comcast Corporation, made 5.656 trillion USD in profits in 2023. This was followed by the
second-largest media company, the Walt Disney Company, at 3.32 trillion USD and Charter
Communications at 4.873 trillion
2.2 Advertising
2.21 According to Statista, from 2001 to 2022, the advertising revenue earned by Google
increased from 0.07 billion USD in 2001 to 224.47 billion USD in 2022. In the past 6 years,
from 2017 to 2022, advertising revenue has made up more than 80% of Google’s revenue.
2.22 According to the market research firm, Growth Market Reports, The global television
advertising market was valued at USD 277 Billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach USD
314.9 Billion by 2031.
2.23 The American brewery The Miller Brewing Company ran an advertising campaign in
2019 that compared the nutritional values of its Miller Lite beer with that of competitors, to
inform consumers that Miller Lite was the healthier choice.
3. Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)
3.1 Spread awareness
3.11 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal rights NGO,
has used social media to raise awareness of animal mistreatment in the food
industry. According to the PETA website, to date, the NGO has created 500
Facebook posts and 3000 tweets to raise awareness of animal mistreatment in
the food industry and teach people how to eliminate meat products from their
diets.
3.12 In 2014, the ALS Association started the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise
awareness of the ALS disease. The movement went viral, generating more than
70,000 tweets daily at the peak of its popularity. Before the Ice Bucket Challenge,
public awareness of ALS was limited, with only half of Americans having heard of the
disease according to the New York Times. However, the awareness of ALS exploded
worldwide due to the Ice Bucket Challenge, significantly increasing the ALS
Association's funding. Shortly after the challenge went viral, The New York Times
reported that the ALS Association had received $41.8 million in donations from more
than 739,000 new donors from July 29 until August 21, more than double the amount
the association received during the year that ended January 31, 2013.
3.13 The Surfrider Foundation, as part of its Rise Above Plastics campaign,
published posters that contain information about the huge amount of plastic waste
that enters the ocean and is eaten by fish, to raise awareness about the huge issue
of ocean plastic waste.
3.2 Promote Activism
3.21 Extinction Rebellion (ER), a climate activism group utilises social media to
encourage more people to engage in climate activism. According to the online
trade magazine Digiday, ER uses its Instagram account, which had over
655,000 followers in 2020, to post protest photos, details for upcoming actions,
climate change news etc., to encourage more people to be concerned about
climate change and partake in climate activism. Furthermore, ER has enlisted
the help of other social media influencers, such as Jack Harries, to spread their
climate activism ideals to their followers (Jack Harries had 4 million YouTube
subscribers in 2018).
4. Journalists
4.1 Check and balance on the government and society/watchdog
4.11 Jane Bradley is a well-known, investigative journalist who has worked for the
BBC, Buzzfeed News and now NY Times. Some of her notable cases included:
- an investigation into how the British government failed victims of domestic
abuse at the start of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020
- an exposé of the trafficking gangs recruiting Britain's homeless into slave labour
in 2018, along with the failure of the UK government’s flagship modern
slavery strategy to address this issue.
- an investigation into how the UK's biggest bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland
(RBS), systematically abused customers for profit in 2016
4.12 Investigative Journalism has been around for a long time. For example, in the
1900s, Ida Tarbell investigated the Standard Oil Company, one of the largest
companies at the time, and exposed its unfair business methods in a series of
magazine articles. This outraged the public and led the U.S. government to
prosecute the company for violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, leading
to the break up of the company.
5. Individuals
5.1 Obtain information
5.11 According to figures published by Barb, the UK ratings body., BBC News’ UK
audience reach in April 2023 stood at 9.7M viewers. This increased to more than
11.4 million in October 2023.
5.12 According to the 2022 Statista Global Consumer Survey, 54% of respondents in
India had read a printed newspaper daily in the past two weeks. Austria came in
second at 44%, Germany at 30%. By comparison, only 20% of the respondents in
the U.S. read a printed newspaper in the past two weeks.
5.13 According to Datareportal in 2023, 34.1% of surveyed social media users (all
aged 16-64) reported that their primary use of social media is to read news stories.
5.14 According to a 2021 survey done by Pew Research Centre, about 48% of
American adults get news on social media, at least sometimes. About 31% of
American adults get their news regularly from Facebook and about 13% get their
news from Twitter.
5.2 Spread information
5.21 One prominent example would be the shutting off of Internet access in Iran in
September 2022 to stamp out the Mahsa Amini Protests. Despite the Iranian
government shutting off all Internet access on 20th September to hide the killings of
protestors by government forces, images and news about the incidents were still
leaked and spread across numerous social media platforms such as Reddit and
Twitter, allowing the spread of truth to people of multiple countries.
5.22 Another example would be the impact of social media on many Russian citizens’
opinions on the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2022. In Russia, propaganda was spread
about the war in favour of Russia, stating that Ukraine was simply unwilling to
compromise and have negotiations with Russia, presenting few contrasting views to
the audiences. However, thanks to the ease of social media, pictures and videos of
what truly was happening in the war managed to reach Russian eyes and give them a
better understanding of the situation. Some soldiers even deserted the war in support
for Ukraine instead.
5.3 Network/ Communicate
5.31 According to a survey by Datarepotal, the primary reason for most people to use
Social Media is to keep in touch with friends and family, with 48.7% of respondents
citing so.
5.32 According to a survey by Datarepotal, 22.7% of respondents cite ‘Making new
contacts’ as their primary reason to use social media.
5.33 LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform. primarily
used for professional networking to aid one's career development. As of 2023,
according to Statista, LinkedIn has more than 745 million users worldwide, and this is
expected to rise to nearly 771 million in 2024
Benefits (Entertainment)
4.1 In 2022, the value of the media and entertainment market reached 2.32 trillion U.S.
dollars, experiencing a growth of 5.4% compared to 2021, according to Statista.
4.2 According to Statista, the popular video streaming platform Netflix had around 247.2
million paid subscribers worldwide as of the third quarter of 2023.
4.3 According to Statista, the top five preferred TV content genres in the U.S. were Comedy
(61%), Dramas (53%), Documentaries (44%), News (41%), and Sports (41%).
4.4 According to a 2023 Datareportal survey, 22.7% of respondents reported that their main
use of social media was to watch live streams, 22.0% reported that their main use of social
media was to watch and follow sports, and 30.2% reported that their main use of social
media was to find content to consume, like videos.
4.5 According to Wordsrated, revenue from global fiction book sales increased from 8.05
billion in 2019 to 10.03 billion in 2021. Furthermore, the share of fiction in total book trade
revenue increased from 50.72% in 2019 to 53.38% in 2021.
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There are other benefits, but I have integrated them into other examples