If you were to ask someone the last time they used social media, they would answer with a time less than 24 hours but most likely less than two hours ago. Social media has taken over society, and has become part of most peoples’ daily routines. But despite all the benefits, social media has its down fall. The internet is an outlet for people to share their opinions, including negative ones. Posts or comments can be made that hurt or offend people and there is nothing stopping the spread of internet hatred. Social media has become be a place where hate crimes occur because there are no controls on what can be posted, anyone can post anything and laws are slow to act upon social media thereby preventing legal repercussions. Some people believe that laws regulating social media take away freedom of speech, but there is a line between expressing your opinion and being hateful.

Millions of people use social media to express their ideas and promote their opinion. Corperation’s that run certain social media sites are constantly facing a problem on how to control what is being published on their sites. Yik yak is a social media website that allows users to post anonymous and the post will be shown to anyone in a 10-mile radius. The anonymity of the website resulted in college students posting hateful comment, like “At Clemson University in South Carolina, an entire Tumblr account was set up to document racist and homophobic comments on Yik Yak” (Kingkade, 2015). The students at Clemson acted on the hateful speech by making others aware of what was happening. But not all college students are trying to put a stop to the hate, some are encouraging it and Yik Yak is not looking at posts to make sure they are appropriate.

After many Universities experienced hate speech as a result of Yik Yak, the company began to put standards on posts. The app is now able to recognize terms that could be used to offend people. When a word, like “Jewish,” is detected, the app will not allow the user to post (Kingkade, Pressure). While Yik Yak censoring certain words did help, students still found ways to post hateful comments. But Yik Yak still does not review all posts made and will not reveal the identity of students who engage is hate speech (Kingkade, Pressure). Universities cannot punish students who post hateful comments because “In the absence of a specific, actionable threat, though, Yik Yak zealously protects the identities of its users” (Mahler, 2015). The company only feels it is necessary to reveal the identity of a user and monitor its feed when law enforcement is involved or a threat is made. User are able to get away with hate speech because of Yik Yaks privacy policy. Instead of promoting hate speech and allowing users to get away with it, they should be working on ways to prevent it. 

Today Yik Yak no longer exists due to the lack of monitoring of the posts made. Other websites still do not have the proper means to monitor posts being made to their feed, for example Twitter. In Edwards article, he explains “in the case of Twitter at least, that researchers will only get a very small fraction of the [1] % of tweets that are geo-located” (“Digital”). Twitter has the ability to view posts using geolocation, but are only able to see a small amount because of the large number of tweets made every day. Since Twitter lacks the ability to assure appropriateness of posts, anyone can post anything. There are no restrictions on who gets to create a Twitter account and that includes the president.

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, uses his Twitter account to share his thought on national and political issues. Many people agree that Trump is engaging in online hate speech and he should be removed from twitter. In David Kravet’s article he states, “The company said the president's tweet hadn't come down, and the president hasn't been banned because his tweets are newsworthy” (“Twitter”). Twitter is using the inappropriate comments of the president to gain publicity, rather than stopping a growing problem. The president of the United States is supposed to lead the country and set an example for other countries. But, the actions of Donald Trump on twitter has shown American citizens that it is okay to engage in hate speech online. 

In the article "Twilight of the Narratives," Matthew Continni discusses how politicians use social media to pursued the public on what to think of a current event. Terrorism is a problem around the world and different leads have different opinions. Barak Obama used media in an appropriate manner, to share his opinions on the relationship between Islam and terrosim (Continni, “Twilight”). But, Donald Trump used social media in a different more hateful manner. After the Brussels terror attack Donald Trump tweeted, “Incompetent Hillary, despite the horrible attack in Brussels today, wants borders to be weak and open-and let the Muslims flow in. No way!” (Incompetent). Not only was Trump being racist toward Muslims, but bashed Hilary Clinton as well. There are people who use social media properly, but Donald Trump should not be making hateful posts as the leader of the free world.  

Donald Trump is not the first person to engage in social media hate speech while the entire country watches his every move. Lee Garrett was a contestant on the popular TV dating show The Bachelorette. The show advertises the contest as the most eligible men in America. But Lee was scene on camera making racist remarks toward the other constants. Viewers then stalked Lee’s twitter, and found a number of racist twitter, one which read “What's the difference between the NAACP and the KKK, one has a sense of shame to cover their racist a** faces” (@leegarett, What’s…). Originally Lee saw nothing wrong with this tweet and was forced into apologizing for his racism (France, Lee Garrett). Lee has shown that hate speech on social media is acceptable and goes without being punished. He became famous for all of his racist comments and has shown American that you can get away with being a racist. 

A main reason people engage in online hate speech is because there are no laws that apply to the internet. People do not feel as though they can get legally punished. Recently in Germany, a new law has been put in to place. This law will hold social media companies accountable, by imposing fines, on any company that does not delete illegal or hateful posts (Scott, Delete). No law like this exists in the United States because laws are slow to act upon arising issues. Germanys new law will force companies to monitor their sites and make sure there is no hate speech. 

There have been attempts to create better laws, but according to Kinglade, “free speech experts worry that efforts to limit what students can say in their posts could censor constitutionally protected speech” (Pressure). When people feel as though there first amendment right is at stake, they will prevent laws from being passed. Social media does not restrict what people post, and some do not want that to change. 

Anyone one who uses social media sees that no one gets arrested or fined for posting hateful comments. Yik Yak users are anonymous so may never be found if they make a post that insults a particular race. People become upset and do not like the post, but the same applies for Lee Garrett and Donald Trump. Many petitions have been made and signed by thousands, in order to get Trumps twitter deleted. But Twitter allows him to continue to make racist, hateful posts. Lee Garett was socially frown upon, but he is still active on Twitter. He became famous because the TV show, The Bachelorette, emphasized his racism. To the public, social media hate speech is not a legal problem. Trump, Lee and Yik Yak users walk freely without a legal record of racism and so do many other social media users. It is hard to get mad and upset at social media hate speech when there is nothing stopping people from engaging in it.  

The first step in creating safer social media websites is legally punishing people who have committed hate crimes. Large companies can develop a department that finds and reports hateful posts to law enforcement. While there are already ways for other users to report post, most of the time the post remains on the website. Companies should review all reported posts to ensure there is no hateful content. If a post is found to be hateful, companies should remove the post, deactivate the users account and report to local authorities. Law enforcement should also be developing programs that are dedicated to internet crime because of the growing use of technology in society. The department can deal with online hate speech and bring legal repercussions to people who engage in hate speech. 

A legal repercussion could range from a fine to jail time. Regardless of the punishment, people will become enraged because of the change in society. Law enforcement will start becoming a treat online, unlike their lack of presence today. Many court cases will come about which will lead to common laws being made. The common laws will lead to new legislate regarding online hate crimes to be passed. Citizens should also encourage local politicians to address the problem in legislation. Laws will lead to punishment and then people will be more conscience about their posts on social media. But, until laws and punishments are place on hateful social media posts, the problem of crimes on social media will continue to get worse. 
