Topic area: Digital world

Essay title: How can social media be used to promote violent behaviors?
Word count: 1990

Introduction

Using the internet to promote violent actions against humans or animals and

discrimination acts towards some communities are evidence of the incorrect use of

social media. These events have promoted negative actions among viewers, which

are some of the difficulties the internet has had over the years. Around the world,

there have been reports of cases of violence on social media platforms where people

are seen attacking defenseless animals or persons, having negative consequences

on the sensitivity of viewers. This research will demonstrate to readers how the role

of social media administration is not well organized and will be analyzed to see how

responsible that is for negative content trying to reflect the impact this issue has had

on the Colombian context.

Concept of social media

Due to the huge technological advances the world has developed in the last few

years, social media were created to support people with this needs. Social media is

an internet platform in which the community can share ideas, thoughts, and

information, you can share and connect simultaneously with anyone on Earth. It has

spread during the last years all over the world, being used by famous people and

common citizens alike. The 20th century brought new changes, with them the first

supercomputers, therefore scientists and engineers wanted a way in which these

computers could engage with each other, consequently, it was created the internet,

with the email, which brought new connections, but Six Degrees was the first
recognizable social media created, in 1977, allowing people making profiles and

talking with their friends. By this creation it opened the door to new inventions,

thousands of social media sites came out, with them YouTube in 2005, Facebook

and Twitter in 2006, WhatsApp in 2009, Instagram in 2010, WeChat in 2011, TikTok

in 2016, and many others, are nowadays basis, being the most used platforms. They

were supposed to be used for entertaining and to communicate with humans around

the world, unfortunately, it has been used to promote violent behaviors and being an

excuse for committing violent actions.

Club penguin

It was a popular social platform in which teenagers and kids could enter to play and

chat with people all over the world, providing a safe place of entertainment until some

events that affected the intention of this game. Club penguin was launched in 2005,

reaching over 200 million players in its period, this game was independent until 2007

when Disney decided to buy it. In 2017, club penguin was closed due to copyright

issues and the high presence of adults, which were aggressive and degraded the

safe environment the game had. With the launching of the game, there appeared

thousands of copies of it, bringing with them Club Penguin Online. The game was

created with some filters that avoid sending disrespectful or insulting words for

making a safe environment for kids, despite some people started to disable these

filters and being disrespectful. Thanks to the Coronavirus Club Penguin Online got

more users, making the Oficial Club Penguin and Club Penguin Online close, due to

copyright issues, sexual, and racist content. Therefore the BBC news infiltrated the

game and discovered a whole new face of this game, in here they discovered igloos

in which people participated in sexual activities or racism activities, therefore the

game was obligated by Disney to close it for security, leaving almost more than 7

million users asking why they close. Finally, in March 2020 the Official Club Penguin

and Club Penguin Online were closed. This type of game has shown that although all

the security there could be implemented, there is someone that would damage a

clean environment and promote these violent behaviors.

Blue whale challenge

Let´s locate in the south-eastern part of Russia, in the most popular social network

Vkontakte. Like any other social media platform, Vkontakte allows people to

communicate with each other, post things, and entertain. Everything was calm until

on 22nd November of 2015, a suspicious photo was posted. It was a teenager, who

posted a selfie in which she shows her middle finger, but it seems to be covered with

dried blood and in the description, she said ¨bye¨, the next day she took her life. It

was investigated that she was participating in a room chat, but the reasons for her

suicide wasn’t clear. Days later, there were reported different suicides from

teenagers, both of them also participated in similar group chats in which they texted

things about suicides and blue whales. It is known that a blue whale was their icon

because these animals represent solitary and sadness. These group chats search for

teenagers that maybe could have problems or they want to try something new. The

game consists of the accomplishment of different tasks in 50 days, each day the

complexity of those challenges increased, firstly are things like, watching a horror

movie or waking up at the night, but as you continue on it, the challenges changed

from silliness, to cut a whale on your arm, when you finally accomplished all the

tasks, the game tells you to take your own life. Between November 2015 to April

2016, 130 children took their lives. There were reported suicides from all over the
world, the game had spread and thousands of children were playing it. In November

2016, a 21-year-old guy who studied psychology was arrested for inciting suicide on

teenagers receiving a three years prison sentence, he admitted culpability and his

justification, ¨he was cleaning society¨. In April 2017 this game arrived in Colombia,

by the increment of suicide in teenagers between 12 to 15 years old, the police came

out with the game because of the similarity of suicides. According to some

investigations, the groups that invited teenagers to participate, recollected their

personal information, for then being used as a way to treat them for making the

challenges, therefore the Direction of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN) and

the Police block all the accounts that participated in this game. This has shown that

there could exist people with very degraded thoughts, that with only thinking he is

doing a good for society, ends ruining the lives of millions of families and innocent

children.

¨Dont F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer¨

In the world there exist, famous people, common people, gamers, YouTubers,

athletic ones, divas, etc, and those who have something in their minds that don’t let

them think well. This is the case of Luka Rocco Magnotta, a Canadian guy, who his

biggest wish was to be famous, after failing as a model, he started publishing videos

in which he killed kittens, since then he started receiving that fame he most wanted.

His case has been better known around the world, thanks to a Netflix documentary in

which they showed some of the most important details of his investigation and the

story behind it. All started one day, in which Deanna Thompson, like normally,

entered Facebook, and opened a notification in which it was a link, that guided to a
youtube video named ¨1 boy 2 kittens¨, the video at first seems to be like a normal

video of cute kittens, but as you continue watching, things turn out of control, he kept

the kittens on a compress bag for then take out the air and killed the kittens. Deanna

was shocked, she wanted him in jail, therefore she asked on her social media for any

information about the guy. A man in London also found the video and found that

Deanna also was searching for him, they communicated and started searching about

it. They started an investigation on Facebook, each day more people started to help

until they found a vacuum that only can be found in North America, their first clue.

The Facebook page was getting a lot of members. They could get help from a group

that rescues animals, with this, they gained more members and they started having

more clues. Some months later another video was posted, the same content, a guy

killing a cat, with this video they could get his address, but when they told the police,

they were too late, he had escaped, they thought it was all until another video was

posted, now it was a human, he killed a 33-year-old guy with an ice pick and a knife,

he quarter the body and sent some parts to the government of Canada. Fortunately,

in 2013 he was caught in Germany trying to escape and was given a 25-year prison

sentence without any possibility of asking for liberty. He said he was inspired by

serial killers like Ted Bundy and from a movie of 1942. It is incredible how people

with a very distorted mind commit things like that and give as an excuse a movie.

This has reflected the way a simple movie or social media can influence your

decisions and the way you behave, from simple wishes of being famous, people can

do anything for achieving this goal, and with social media influences, this makes it

worse.

Course of action
As can be evidenced along with this paper, social media have become a concerning

issue to the world in the last few years. Fortunately, these cases have brought an

effective solution to end this situation. After Club Penguin closed the game, Disney

controlled the activity with a letter of cessation and desist for avoiding the incorrect

use of the game, for the Blue Whale Challenge, police officers in charge of protecting

the wealth of users in social media, could close all the accounts who participated in

these games, finally in the case of ¨Dont F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer¨

officers could capture Luka Magnotta, unluckily nowadays people still post violent

content on the Internet, therefore social media have implemented new ways for

avoiding this type of content, for example, Instagram added an option in which users

can restrict or block violent posts aiming the benefit of users, as well as Facebook,

and Tiktok (which during these last years has become popular). These social media

have implemented this button on their apps for controlling the number of violent posts

that can affect society, despite, some people continue posting violent content and

degrade the environment, so there still exist a bunch of different problems related to

the ones presented that have not been solved yet. One possible way to enhance the

actions that have been already taken could be the creation of some campaigns that

promote the correct use of social media where the government or the social media

managers play an important role in the promotion of these campaigns in their

countries aiming to control violent posts posted on the internet and then create a

health virtual users culture

Reflection

Before the implementation of this research, my knowledge about the impact of online

content was far from the real repercussion of it as well as how harmful that content
could be and the great number of consequences it can generate. I had some

knowledge about some of the cases, for example, I did know that club penguin was

closed, but I thought that was because of copyright issues when I found out it was

because of violent and disrespectful content I did not play anymore that game, with

the blue whale challenge, I remember that when that game arrived in Colombia,

everyone in the school was making jokes about it, but once I realized all the deaths

this caused, I knew the seriousness this game was, at last, the most unbelievable

case, ¨Dont F**k With Cats¨. When I saw the Netflix documentary, I was shocked,

because how that guy killed the kittens only for fame, and then he killed a human, he

was crazy, the most impressive fact is that he recorded all the murders and

published them on Social Media. Despite all the solutions implemented, people need

to be careful when they manage their social media because by posting something

that could have personal information you could be at risk.

References list

● ‘‘Blue Whale: What is the truth behind an online 'suicide challenge'?’’. (2019,
January 13). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-
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● ‘‘Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now’’. (2013, May 8). Retrieved
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%20media,sensation%20that's%20still%20popular%20today

● ‘‘Disney shuts down Club Penguin clones after kids exposed to explicit
messages’’. (2020, May 18). Retrieved from
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-05-18-disney-shuts-down-club-
penguin-clones-after-kids-were-exposed-to-explicit-messages

● ‘‘Global Social Media Overview’’. (n.d). Retrieved from

https://datareportal.com/social-media-users#:~:text=Facebook%20remains
%20the%20world's%20most,platforms%20are%20owned%20by
 %20Facebook.&text=Facebook%20has%202.603%20billion%20monthly
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● ‘‘Instagram Adds New 'Restrict' Option to Limit the Exposure of Trolls and
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● ‘‘¿No te metas con Los Gatos es una historia real? – Don’t fuck with cats’’.
[Don't mess with the cats is a true story? - Don’t fuck with cats] (2020, January
7). Retrieved from https://www.postposmo.com/no-te-metas-gatos-real

● ‘‘Social Media Definition’’. (2020, September 6). Retrieved from

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.asp#:~:text=Social
%20media%20is%20computer%2Dbased,of%20virtual%20networks%20and
%20communities.&text=Users%20engage%20with%20social%20media,often
%20utilizing%20it%20for%20messaging