Kylie Lang on why social media has made the world a worse place

The greed of profit-ravenous tech giants has decimated human decency, writes Kylie Lang.

Social media – has it made the world better?

Remember when the sneakiest thing you could do on social media was to use a filter to enhance a photo and not tell anyone?

Bung on a bit of Clarendon, Juno or Valencia and make your images pop.

Then it became cool, even though some people clearly cheated, to use the hashtag #nofilter – as if you were really a closet photographic genius.

Ah, Instagram, how tame you were back in the day – 2010, that is, a mere 15 years ago.

Now, as social media platforms have multiplied so has the deceit they allow people to portray as true.

And I’m talking about more than the “look-at-me-and-my-fabulous-life-bet-you’re-jealous” posts.

Social media has become sinister and the minds of users have become sicker.

You might say it’s chicken and egg stuff – which came first? – but I’d wager that anti-social behaviour of the chronic kind we’ve been seeing recently is a direct result of these unregulated online platforms.

The greed of profit-ravenous tech giants has decimated human decency.

Bullying like never before, revenge porn, deepfake nudes and the online abuse of children including by other children are bordering on commonplace.

But as those of us who recall life before social media rightly demand better responses – from our schools, our parents, our politicians and critically the tech behemoths – there is another degree of moral corruption going on.

Let me give you two examples.

When a young man allegedly brutally attacked a middle-aged bus driver last Friday evening at Brisbane’s South Bank station, passengers were eager to film it.

The distressing footage was then uploaded to social media.

Did no passenger think to immediately go to the driver’s aid? Why was their first thought, where’s my phone?

The lure of a twisted type of fame on social media is strong.

We see it also when students are brawling on school grounds. Rather than break up fights, onlookers are hanging back and filming them.

They’re getting kicks out of another’s suffering and using it to boost their social media engagement.

Have social media made the world a better place?

Now to the case of a Queensland mother accused of torturing her baby for social media kudos.

The 34-year-old was charged in January over allegedly drugging her infant to get clicks and money from the content she posted on TikTok.

As if those allegations aren’t horrendous enough, this week The Courier-Mail revealed a number of people have created copycat social media accounts.

The fake accounts use the family’s name and previously posted images and videos.

Pathetic? You bet.

David Tuffley, who lectures in applied ethics and cyber security at Griffith University, says there is “a thriving black market” for TikTok accounts.

The aim of these fakes, Dr Tuffley says, is to attract followers then monetise the accounts through advertising, soliciting donations or selling them on the black market.

Staggering to think from October to December last year, TikTok stopped more than 10.47 billion fake likes on its content due to inauthentic engagement and fake accounts activity, according to Statista data.

Stan Karanasios, a professor in information systems at the UQ Business School, says there is no way of knowing how many fake accounts exist but the motive is to “piggyback” on a person’s legitimacy to “lure people into believing you are trustworthy and (to) engage in scams and malicious activities”.

What a world we live in.

I wish we could shut down social media and make phones dumb again.

I wish TV shows like SeaChange and Seinfeld were being seen for the first time.

I wish people would escape to the country and not whine about the Wi-Fi. But just as we can’t turn back time, we have to be present to what’s happening now.

We cannot let ourselves be conditioned to accept heinous behaviour as the new norm simply because of the prevalence of it online.

There are many education programs around social media use, positive parenting in the digital age and how to keep yourself safe online – but they are not enough.

Until tech giants are properly held to account, people will continue to be pawns.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of The Courier-Mail
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Originally published as Kylie Lang on why social media has made the world a worse place