As the world opened up this summer, we saw a return to the office and a return to the dancefloor. The world of digital and social was as busy as always, pushing forward into this brave new world.
The UK Government wants to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online and explained its plan to do so through the draft Online Safety Bill in May 2021.
The hefty piece of legislation has attracted considerable debate, including over social media users’ anonymity. Those calling for it to end claim it’s the only way of tackling the plague of abuse in online spaces. However, there is growing awareness of the risks this might bring: it provides vital protection for vulnerable groups such as the LGBTQ+ community and those living under less liberal regimes. This issue alone highlights the challenge of law-making – balancing competing rights.
The Bill may also set the tone for global internet regulation – we therefore have to consider the example it might set for other, less scrupulous regimes.
Privacy and transparency are still top of mind for social platforms and this can be seen from Facebook closing loopholes in WhatsApp’s privacy systems and Twitter testing new tags to label bot accounts more easily. Building trust with users is still a key goal. This extends to other online giants through the recent stories around Google Chrome and its shaky security when it comes to tracking and data harvesting.
Community has always been at the heart of social platforms and online groups, but as they move further into resembling paid publishing platforms, there’s a renewed drive to push community. Twitter is tackling this head on with the trial of (yep, you guessed it) ‘Twitter Communities’, topic-based groups within the app. Is this the next evolution of online connections or could it push users further into the echo chamber? Certainly, one to watch.
TikTok continues to be at the forefront of creativity, partnering with Vimeo and Canva to further inspire its users and utilise big players in video and design. What’s more, it might be TikTok’s continued efforts to innovate that have helped them recently overtake YouTube for average watch time in the UK and US.