Is this a watershed moment for social media hate after BBC Panorama investigation?

A BBC Panorama investigation last night revealed how social media sites, including Facebook and Instagram, actively push misogynistic content to men who send abusive content to women, radicalising them further.

The team set up a fake troll account across the five most popular social media platforms. The troll engaged with content recommended by the platforms, and was subsequently recommended more and more anti-women content, some involving sexual violence.

This simply confirmed what most of us already knew — that despite the empty promises from big tech firms, hate and abuse equals profit and so will continue to fester and flourish unchecked. It’s now also clear that 18 months of global lockdowns have exacerbated the problem. Experts today warned of an increased engagement in extremist material online ranging from terrorist content to conspiracy theories and disinformation during the pandemic. I don’t pretend to have experienced the levels of harassment suffered by high-profile women, but as a journalist, racist and sexist abusive threats are now routine in my life.

You can report this content, but you might as well save your time — Panorama showed that 97 per cent of accounts sending misogynistic abuse on Twitter and Instagram remained on the sites after being reported. However it does feel as though, tentatively, this cocktail of toxicity might be somewhat of a watershed moment in the regulation of big tech.

In the wake of the killing of Sir David Amess, MPs have been speaking out about the abuse they face online. In a moment dubbed Facebook’s “big tobacco moment of truth” earlier this month, whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed how it steered young users towards damaging content, stoked division and weakened democracy.

So, when will enough become enough? Will it be the impunity of Facebook, a rare issue that unites many across the political divide, that finally spurs governments into action? How many more lives have to be ruined? What is clear is that radicalisation is no longer an intangible series of hypotheses. The impacts of the unfettered reign of social media algorithms have already been borne out, and we are seeing its devastating effects. And we may have finally lost patience.

What do you think should be done to prevent online abuse and radicalisation? Let us know in the comments below.