Criminology Seminar Series - A Failure to Regulate? The Demands and Dilemmas of Tackling Illegal Content and Behaviour on Social Media
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
No booking required
A Failure to Regulate? The Demands and Dilemmas of Tackling Illegal Content and Behaviour on Social Media
Speaker: Professor Majid Yar (School of Law, Lancaster University)
The proliferation of social media applications has brought in its wake a growing problem of illegal and harmful interactions and content online. In the UK concern has focused on issues such as (a) sexually-oriented content about or directed to children; (b) the malicious sharing of sexual imagery without the consent of those depicted i.e. so-called ‘revenge porn’ or ‘image-based abuse’; and (c) content that is racially or religiously hateful, incites violence and promotes or celebrates terrorist violence. Most recently, content that incites users (especially minors) to self-harm and suicide has become the target of concerted criticism. Legal innovation has sought to make specific provision for many such online offences, and offenders have been subject to prosecution in some widely-publicised cases. Nevertheless, as a whole, the business of regulating (identifying, blocking, removing and reporting) offending content has been left largely to social media providers themselves. This has been sustained by concerns both practical (the amount of public resource that would be required to police social media) and political (concerns about excessive state surveillance and curtailment of free speech in liberal democracies). However, growing evidence about providers’ unwillingness and/or inability to effectively stem the flow of illegal and harmful content has created a crisis for the existing self-regulatory model. Consequently, we now see a range of proposals that would take a much more coercive and punitive stance toward media platforms, so as to compel them into taking more concerted action. Taking the UK as a primary focus, these proposals are considered and assessed, with a view to charting possible future configurations for tackling illegal social media content.
About the Speaker
Majid Yar is Professor of Criminology at Lancaster Law School, Lancaster University. His research interests include cybercrime, digital culture, cultural criminology, crime and media, and criminological and social theory. He is the co-author (with Kevin F. Steinmetz) of Cybercrime and Society, 3rd edition (2019); author of The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet (2015), Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster (2015), and Crime Deviance and Doping (2014); and co-editor (with Yvonne Jewkes) of The Handbook of Internet Crime (2010).
About the Criminology Seminar Series
In line with the School of Law, Birkbeck's research and teaching ethos, the Criminology Seminar Series aims to provide a platform for critical and interdisciplinary research, showcasing prominent and path-breaking research on crime, criminal justice and related themes by scholars from within and beyond Birkbeck. The series is convened by Dr Sappho Xenakis, School of Law, Birkbeck.
Attendance to the events is free but registration is required. Talks from the 2018/19 series will be available for download via the website. Find out more about the series here. The hashtag for the event is #BBKCrimSeries.
This event is free however booking is required via this page.
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School of Law