25 Percent of Canadians Are Harassed on Social Media
25 Percent of Canadians Are Harassed on Social Media
A recent survey by the Angus Reid Public Interest Research Institute found that one-fourth of Canadians are subjected to “unwelcome comments, vicious insults, threats of violence, or worse,” with the bulk of abuse coming from Facebook and Twitter. The number rises among frequent and younger users.
In response, users have become reluctant to engage in debate with those holding contrary opinions. Instead, they hold back and self-censor themselves when it comes to controversial topics. The Institute also found that Canadians believe Internet companies aren’t doing enough to curb harassment and personal attacks.
When queried about where the companies are falling short, users said that they weren’t responsive to complaints and requests for assistance, and they weren’t performing sufficient moderation tasks: finding and removing offensive content in a timely manner. When given removal policy choices, most wanted the companies to “get tough” by regularly monitoring and moderating interactive areas and actively removing content (and those that post it) that does not follow the rules of conduct.
If a company does not have internal resources to moderate areas where users are allowed to post messages and comments, the best alternative is to hire a vendor who specializes in online moderation.
One such company is Mzinga, who for more than 25 years has been keeping companies (and their users) safe from harassment, offensive personal attacks, and other abuses. We are also able to triage requests to customer service: providing assistance, answering questions, and routing specific requests to the proper divisions of the company.
Your users and customers are demanding that you take tough action to keep them safe. Why not take the first step: give us a call and let us show you how Mzinga moderation and customer service triage can revive civility?
