Social media sites under fire for not removing school fight pages, violent videos
Social media sites have been criticised for failing to remove criminal content including school fight pages and violent videos shared on the platforms.
NSW
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Young people growing up with crime being glorified on their phone screens say their generation is increasingly becoming desensitised to violence because of social media.
As social media platforms come under fire for failing to take down criminal content being shared on their sites, Little Bay student Lexis Dimitrijevic, 21, recalled how she saw violent school fights being shared on social media as an “impressionable” Year 9 student.
Her school had a “fight page” which posted physical altercations between students, a trend she said is likely to grow more now.
“I do remember in high school there being fight pages on Instagram that were never really taken down, I think it would happen more now though rather than when I was younger as social media is bigger,” she said.
“It was in Year 9 … everyone is super impressionable at that age. It’s not the best example for young girls to be seeing that, it gave us a bad rep (reputation) and it was bad for the girls on there but also the school.”
UK not-for-profit organisation Youth Endowment fund’s research published late last year revealed 60 per cent of children had witnessed real-world acts of violence on social media in a single year while a third saw content involving weapons.
About 25 per cent viewed videos that showed violence against women and girls while almost 50 per cent of children who used TikTok saw violent content.
Ms Dimitrijevic said social media was normalising violence but it was not practical to expect social media giants to take down the volumes of videos being uploaded.
“The more social media grows I think the more we are desensitised to this kind of violence and then when it keeps happening we think it’s okay,” she said.
“Now as an adult when I see violence online I kind of think it’s okay, it’s nothing shocking to me because I’ve seen it all before.
“Meta can’t fix this stuff anymore, it’s kind of known that Meta contributes to crime, there’s black markets, scams and child trafficking through Facebook. It’s such a wide thing now that it’s impossible to go through it all, they can try their best but I don’t think it’s possible to take everything down”.
Ms Dimitrijevic also finds the speed that content gets uploaded and spread by Meta “concerning”.
“I absolutely find it concerning, I remember seeing all the fights on Australia Day in Manly while I was at the ferry terminal where kids were beating each other up,” she said.
“A few hours later it was all over my TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, I was like ‘wow that got out fast’”.
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