# FILE NAME: 00002495.soc
# TITLE: Should the government have a greater role in regulating social media platforms? [573348796cdc626371200e523d4c0aef]
# DESCRIPTION: 
# DATA TYPE: soc
# MODIFICATION TYPE: original
# RELATES TO: 
# RELATED FILES: 
# PUBLICATION DATE: 2025-10-12
# MODIFICATION DATE: 2025-10-12
# NUMBER ALTERNATIVES: 4
# NUMBER VOTERS: 5
# NUMBER UNIQUE ORDERS: 5
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 1: Statement 1 - Social media platforms should be regulated by the government. This is because the social media platforms are not doing enough to regulate their own platforms and the government has a duty to protect its citizens from harm. The government needs to have greater powers to regulate social media platforms, particularly for children and young people. There is a large discrepancy between some of the information available on these platforms and the actual facts when considering issues like elections and politics, vaccines and medicines and other issues such as LGBTQ+ issues. However, if the government had greater powers, unscrupulous governments or politicians could regulate and control social media so that some opinions, facts or information was not readily available thus swaying public opinion, perhaps incorrectly, and influencing voting.  I think it is important to have independent fact checkers who can alert people to the misinformation contained within some posts. Some social media should not be seen by young people as it can harm their mental health and wellbeing and this is where the government needs to have more powers to regulate this. We also all agreed that the government should not have sole responsibility for regulation and that companies and the public should also play a part in regulating social media platforms.
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 2: Statement 2 - Social media platforms should be regulated by the government. This is because the social media platforms are not doing enough to regulate their own platforms and the government has a duty to protect its citizens from harm. The government needs to have greater powers to regulate social media platforms, particularly for children and young people. There is a large discrepancy between some of the information available on these platforms and the actual facts when considering issues like elections and politics, vaccines and medicines and other issues such as LGBTQ+ issues. However, if the government had greater powers, unscrupulous governments or politicians could regulate and control social media so that some opinions, facts or information was not readily available thus swaying public opinion, perhaps incorrectly, and influencing voting.  I think it is important to have independent fact checkers who can alert people to the misinformation contained within some posts. Some social media should not be seen by young people as it can harm their mental health and wellbeing and this is where the government needs to have more powers to regulate this. However, I would not want to see the government alone regulate social media platforms. I think that a hybrid approach is needed with all stakeholders having a voice, including users and parents.
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 3: Statement 3 - Social media companies are abusing their power and they need to be more heavily regulated. We agree with the view of participant 2 that social media is turning into the wild west and this is having a negative effect on society. We feel that the government should have some powers to regulate social media but not all the power. Social media companies have to take some responsibility for the content on their platforms. We feel that this could be done in a number of ways. We feel that social media companies should be heavily fined for not removing content that is dangerous to people's mental health. We feel that there should be independent fact checkers who can alert people to the misinformation contained within some posts. We feel that social media companies should be heavily fined if they allow fraud and other criminal activities to take place on their platforms and they should also be heavily fined if they do not remove posts that contain hate speech. We feel that there should be more regulation of social media companies and if they do not take this regulation seriously then the government should have the power to completely shut them down.
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 4: Statement 4 - We believe that the government should have a greater role in regulating social media platforms. We do not believe that social media platforms are regulating their own platforms correctly. We also believe that the government should not have complete regulation of social media platforms. We believe that it should be a hybrid regulation between the public, the companies and the government. We believe that lives have been destroyed and even lost because of social media and that this is because social media platform owners do not put their users' interests first. We also believe that there is a large discrepancy between some of the information available on these platforms and the actual facts when considering issues like elections and politics, vaccines and medicines and other issues such as LGBTQ+ issues. We also believe that there is some information on social media platforms that should not be seen by young people as it can harm their mental health and wellbeing. We also believe that if the government had greater powers, unscrupulous governments or politicians could regulate and control social media so that some opinions, facts or information was not readily available thus swaying public opinion, perhaps incorrectly, and influencing voting. We also believe that it is important to have independent fact checkers who can alert people to the misinformation contained within some posts.
1: 2,1,4,3
1: 1,2,4,3
1: 4,3,1,2
1: 2,4,1,3
1: 4,2,3,1