Own general research: A failure to regulate?

A Failure to Regulate? The Demands and Dilemmas of Tackling Illegal Content and Behavior on Social Media
'The proliferation and user uptake of social media applications has brought in its wake a growing problem of illegal and harmful interactions and content online. In the UK context, concern has focused in particular upon (a) sexually-oriented content about or directed to children, and (b) content that is racially or religiously hateful, incites violence, and promotes or celebrates terrorist violence. (I will take this into account, and use this to focus my points and ideologies on) Legal innovation has sought to make specific provision for such online offences, and offenders have been subject to prosecution in some widely-publicized cases. Nevertheless, as a whole, the business of regulating (identifying, blocking, removing, and reporting) offending content has been left largely to social media providers themselves. This has been sustained by concerns both practical (the amount of public resource that would be required to police social media) and political (concerns about excessive state surveillance and curtailment of free speech in liberal democracies). However, growing evidence about providers’ unwillingness and/or inability to effectively stem the flow of illegal and harmful content has created a crisis for the existing self-regulatory model. Consequently, we now see a range of proposals that would take a much more coercive and punitive stance toward media platforms, so as to compel them into taking more concerted action. Taking the UK as a primary focus, these proposals are considered, with a view to charting possible future configurations for tackling illegal social media content.'