Twitter to Facebook, social media does more harm than good to society and AI will add to the problem

Social media portals like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram have been doing more harm than good to all societies. There is too much misinformation, rumor-mongering, and influencing that goes on due to their increasing use.

While social media empowered people in an unprecedented manner creating influencers, and a space for people to express opinions freely to attract the attention of those in power on various issues, it has also created an atmosphere of confusion between truth/reality and fiction/falsity. In particular, political misinformation, fear-mongering, and hero worship have been some of the harmful effects of social media.

The Harm in Shutting Down Twitter

Having said that, I am not sure shutting down a social media platform is a solution, because if you do shut down, or try to make it difficult for a social media to operate, others would come up to fill the vacuum which might be more harmful. For example, we have seen Koo trying to replace Twitter or TruthSocial trying to replace Twitter in the US, but they came with much more partisan and extremist following.

Danger From AI Tools And Crucial Need For Regulation

With the unprecedented availability of AI-based tools for creating deep fake images, videos, and audio, the problem will get amplified further. There should be some form of regulation, and some kind of a body independent of the government of the day — inclusive of various political party representatives, judges, ex-law enforcement officers, and social scientists — that should regulate social media to avoid undue influence of the government in deciding what should be removed from there.

There should also be AI-based tools to detect fake information and accordingly, social media posts should be filtered through such tools. A better legal regimen and independent regulatory body may help, but only if the regulatory body is truly independent.

Sandeep Shukla is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-Kanpur).

Note: The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of HT Tech.