Social Media should bear all responsibility for hate speech and misinformation.

In 2017, Albany High School was front and center in the middle of a nationwide controversy, in 2023, Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed By Dakasha Slater, was released it detailed every part of the scandal that slandered the school, the after effects, and the motives for such actions. The book details how a private Instagram account was discovered via a group of girls finding it and reporting it to the school; it contained various racist and threatening posts that led to the expulsion of multiple students who held ties with the account. The students later sued the school district over their claim that the school violated their First Amendment rights, but the court later ruled against them. It is no secret that social media played a big part in the scandal, and many have questioned whether Instagram should take responsibility. Furthermore, although social media does not control nor condone what individuals want to post, as they make their own decisions based on their beliefs, social media should ultimately bear responsibility for spreading misinformation and hate speech. They allow harmful content to be posted on their site and leave the content unmonitored leaving it up on the site, therefore they should ultimately bear responsibility for the content posted on it.

Many argue that social media, like Instagram in the case of Accountable, should not bear responsibility for the spread of hate speech as the individual posting the content chose to post it based on their beliefs. As Charles tries explaining his behavior in the Instagram posts in chapter 6 of the book, he reveals where his experience with racist jokes started citing his friends and video games. He reveals what he thinks of the account and what his thought process was like as well as his motivations to post what he posted. Charles had various methods for the content he would post on the Instagram page such as “streak photos, including the picture of Lolia and her coach” which he then “drew in nooses by hand,” and by that point in time he “had spent enough time looking at racist memes to know which images had power” (143). His actions reveal so much about what his inner thoughts were, as his drawing that included a noose reflects how he was well aware of the racist connotations it brought along, and how he deliberately used it as it has always been a sign of violence towards African Americans. His familiarity with what images are powerful with their racist impacts further put his racist demeanor on full display as he knows their harm. As Charles’s actions show, he is undoubtedly racist as his posts reflect his beliefs, therefore Instagram should not bear responsibility for what he decided to post, although they are responsible for the spread of the content and for not taking actions to delete it or remove it from their site.

As seen in Accountable, where Instagram, the social media company, allowed harmful content to bypass the security on their site, and therefore they should take the blame for what transpired. Throughout the book, it becomes apparent through various events what type of media was hidden behind the privatization of the account by many students who encountered the account in some way. Many including Lolia and Sita found the “private Instagram account of disgusting racist images about multiple black girls,” it included “remarks about the ‘KKK’ and lynching’’ as well as “body shame” (61). The account contained dehumanizing pictures as well as symbols, and Instagram’s software could not see that as the post was not taken down as it was posted. Most companies should have a form of software that should be able to detect racist, and dehumanizing content to be able to stop it from even being posted in the first place. The use of software that could have prevented these posts from even being put up on the site and would have not allowed this to happen, but instead their software did not do anything and let the posts go up without any sort of intervention. As the situation in Accountable shows, social media should bear responsibility for the hate speech and misinformation spread throughout their website, as in this case they let harmful and racist content be posted on their site without having monitored it or checked it first.

As our youth of today becomes increasingly more dependent on social media, the platforms handle more power than ever before, and as their impact and reach new heights, it is important they set boundaries as without it like in the case of Instagram in Accountable, the lack of action to take down the content that already bypassed their security and was posted shows the level of accountability they should take. As Kerry gained more insight into the account her suspicions of “this racist Instagram account” that she thought “Eren was following” led to a desire to see the page first hand. They devised a plan to take a classmate's phone who followed the account, as they proceeded to ask Rosie to “ask Eren to borrow his phone to make a call or something” and then “meet them in the bathroom” (64-65). Eren obliged and unlocked his phone and handed it to Rosie as she then headed to the bathroom. Furthermore, the fact that these racist posts on the account were up for an extended amount of time without being taken down by Instagram demonstrates how the social media company is at fault as they did not take any action to try and remove the posts. Instead, many individuals as well as the victims themselves had to be exposed to the harmful content and then had to take decisive actions to take down the account and the content. They did not receive any help from the site which is supposed to be monitoring the content posted on their account to ensure safety and take down the harmful content. Instagram’s lack of inspection of private accounts, and not taking down harmful posts even after they’ve been posted for a long time further exacerbate the narrative that social media platforms should assume responsibility for the propagation of racist and harmful content as well as misinformation.

Many have their own opinion on the matter, some argue that social media platforms should not be front and center in controversy whenever sensitive media is posted as the individual posting it has whatever racist or controversial take engraved within their personality or beliefs. But as the book presents, the social media platforms should be held accountable for their lack of acknowledging the racist and hurtful content posted, but also their lack of action when it comes to taking down posts and accounts that repeatedly post hurtful content. Based on the events that transpired in Accountable, SRHS should hopefully take a lot away from the book and learn what went wrong, especially with the school’s attempt to have both parties reconcile. I hope that SRHS can take harsh disciplinary actions against the perpetrators, they should suspend them, take down the account, and ultimately make them apologize to those whom they hurt. They should be able to provide those affected with mental help and counseling while they make big, harsh decisions against those who did wrong to ensure it never happens again. While Albany tried their best, how they handled their situation was at times blatantly bad. For example, SRHS could learn from the failed mediation meeting in which the harmers and those harmed got out of control and ended up doing far worse than the good that was intended. As Albany High School handled many situations poorly, SRHS could take those mishandled actions from Albany and turn them into something successful that helps both parties on a road of recovery towards making amends, hiccups on the road are understandably gonna happen but there are optimism it is not as bad as the hiccups from Albany, their failed meetings, and their failure to monitor and keep in check both parties.