Ethical Use of Social Media
A CAWACH Mission Hackathon Process Blog
By Trupti Hadiya
M.A. English | Cyber Club & Digital India Cell, MKBU
Under the Cyber Awareness & Digital Citizenship Hackathon organised by the Cyber Club & Digital India Cell, MKBU, as part of the CAWACH initiative of Knowledge Consortium of Gujarat, we were assigned a mission-based academic task to create digital awareness resources using Generative AI in an ethical and responsible manner.
Each participant had to select one topic from the official list of 30 cyber awareness themes and develop multi-format digital resources including videos, infographics, and slides after proper research and verification.
For this month’s mission activity, I selected the topic:
Ethical Use of Social Media
This blog documents the complete academic process I followed — from research to AI-assisted content creation — as guided by our respected professor.
Your Feed, Their Rules: 5 Ethical Dilemmas Shaping Our Digital World
Introduction: The Ghost in the Machine
Social media is a central fixture of modern life, a digital space where we connect with others, share ideas, and consume information. It has revolutionized communication, offering unprecedented opportunities for expression and community.
But beneath the surface of our scrollable feeds, a complex and often invisible set of ethical dilemmas is shaping what we see, how we feel, and how our societies function. These are not minor glitches; they are foundational challenges that touch upon everything from our mental health to the integrity of our democratic processes. This post will reveal five of the most surprising and impactful of these hidden ethical truths.
1. Your Attention Isn't Just Captured, It's Engineered for Addiction
The addictive nature of social media is not an accident; it is a deliberate design choice. The algorithms that power these platforms are built with a single, overriding priority: to maximize engagement and capture as much of your attention as possible. This is the commercial imperative that underpins the entire digital ecosystem.
To achieve this, platforms employ powerful psychological mechanisms. Features like "infinite scrolling" and constant push notifications are engineered to keep users perpetually tethered to their devices. At the same time, the social validation we receive from likes and comments creates "dopamine feedback loops," conditioning our brains to seek more interaction. This constant cycle is intentionally difficult to break. The ethical problem is clear: this design paradigm inevitably results in significant negative impacts on mental health, including increased rates of anxiety and depression, decreased productivity, and the weakening of real-world social bonds.
2. The Real Danger of "Fake News" Isn't Just That It's Wrong
The very architecture of engineered addiction has a corrosive side effect on our information ecosystem. The same engagement-maximizing algorithms that foster addiction also make sensational, and often false, information more likely to spread, creating the conditions that erode trust. While many worry about disinformation persuading or confusing voters, some research suggests its direct impact on changing political preferences might be overestimated.
The more subtle but profound danger is how the constant presence and discussion of disinformation erodes public trust in all online information. This widespread perception of fake news, amplified by media coverage, undermines confidence not only in social media content but also in legitimate sources and democratic institutions. This generalized mistrust poses a significant threat to the "enlightened understanding" required for a healthy democracy, making it harder for citizens to learn about and form opinions on public issues.
3. "Hate Speech" and "Free Speech" Aren't Legally the Same Thing
The challenge of managing information at scale extends from misinformation to the even more fraught territory of hate speech. In the heated debates online, "hate speech" and "free speech" are often used interchangeably, but in the United States legal context, they are distinct. "Hate speech" is an ethical concept, generally understood as expression intended to vilify or incite hatred against a group based on characteristics like race or religion. However, it is not a legally defined category of speech that can be banned.
The U.S. First Amendment provides broad protection for expression, even if that expression is offensive or hateful. The original intent behind this legal framework was to uphold robust public discourse and protect minority voices. For speech to be legally restricted, it must meet a very high bar, such as directly inciting "imminent lawless action" or constituting a "true threat." This creates a persistent ethical tension, an unintended consequence of applying a principle designed for an older media landscape to the new digital one: how do platforms and societies balance the legal imperative of open debate against the ethical need to prevent the harm caused by hateful rhetoric?
4. Content Moderators Wield Unaccountable Power
Just as platforms grapple with the unintended consequences of free speech principles, they face an even more direct challenge in the daily act of content moderation, where unaccountable power is wielded at an unprecedented scale. This is the process of reviewing user-generated content to ensure it complies with a platform's terms of service and community guidelines. This practice places moderators in a position of immense power, navigating the tension between ensuring user safety by removing harmful content and avoiding censorship that restricts open dialogue.
A handful of companies now set the speech rules for billions of people, a task that is inherently difficult and fraught with gray areas. When platform policies are unclear or applied inconsistently, it can create a "chilling effect," causing users to self-censor out of fear of being penalized. This gives social media platforms significant, consequential power over public discourse without the democratic accountability we expect from other institutions that shape public life. They become the arbiters of acceptable speech, a role with major societal impact, often with little transparency.
5. There Is a Global Battle to Write the Rules of the Internet
This unaccountable power has not gone unnoticed by global policymakers, sparking a worldwide battle to write the rules of the internet. While these ethical dilemmas feel universal, the regulatory frameworks being developed to solve them are diverging along starkly different ideological lines.
Two dominant paradigms have emerged. The European Union, through its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Services Act (DSA), has prioritized user rights. Its approach emphasizes data privacy, transparency in content moderation, and a ban on targeted advertising aimed at minors. In contrast, China's algorithm regulations focus on state oversight and control, mandating strict content review to prevent addiction and requiring platform operators to establish ethics review committees under government supervision.
But this binary is incomplete. A potential "third way" is emerging from global institutions seeking universal ethical norms. UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, the first global standard of its kind, calls for mandatory ethical impact assessments and human oversight. Similarly, the United Nations' Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms advocate for a multi-stakeholder approach grounded in international human rights principles. These efforts signal a global search for a shared consensus on how to govern our digital world, moving beyond regional ideologies.
Conclusion: Our Digital Future is an Ethical Choice
The daily experience of scrolling through a social media feed feels simple, but it is the end product of a series of complex and consequential ethical trade-offs. Decisions made in corporate boardrooms and government halls about algorithms, moderation, and data are actively shaping our individual well-being and collective discourse. Our digital lives are not neutral—they are designed.
As these platforms become the new public squares, are we doing enough to ensure they are built to serve the public good?
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