Society looks to social media to express their opinions, get their daily news and pass time.  Phones unlock and log into the most popular social media accounts daily. YouTube, Twitter and even dating sites like Bumble are now getting involved in the content being posted on their accounts. 

These sites have made an effort since the school shooting in Parkland, Florida last month to ban misleading facts and inappropriate behavior. 

According to New York Magazine, conspiracy theorists uploaded hundreds of videos onto YouTube a week after the shooting with incorrect information and conspiracy theories about the shooting and its victims being “paid actors.”

YouTube’s guidelines prohibit any videos that contain nudity or sexual content, violent or graphic content, harmful or dangerous content, hateful content, threats, spam, misleading metadata or scams. With their rules being so clear, and users continuing to break them at a constant rate, the site has decided to take measures in its own hands and crack down on its system for regulating its community. 

Each user is given a three strike policy. If someone uploads a video that breaks the rules in any way, their video is given a strike. If they get three strikes in three months YouTube terminates their entire channel without any notification.

Although YouTube is a place for people to blog about their life and opinions, there is an extreme effort being made to end the negative attention that users are gaining on this specific platform. 

 The female-driven dating app known as Bumble has announced that they would ban all of their 30 million users from posting images that display firearms on March 5. The site has put this into account for the same reason as YouTube; the mass shooting in Parkland.

They later changed the rules to allow those who have served in the military or work in law enforcement to post photos with guns only if they are in uniform. In an interview with Time, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd made a clear stance this app, where people showcase themselves in hopes of attracting others, would not be part of the gun romanticising seen today.  After the simple, and powerful, stance was made, Bumble’s photo reporting increased more than 3,000 percent in the first day. Other than the users, the company has enforced this change by having a team of 5,000 moderators who work in all different time zones, around the clock. The monitoring of photos has already taken place, but it something that is going to take time to make completely violence free. 

Although, these actions came during a time of heightened gun control discussions, Bumble is not trying to discriminate against anyone’s political beliefs. It want its community to stay violence 

Twitter has shared a similar struggle in regulating its Russian bots and trolls that have taken over the platform. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, stated most efforts have shifted from encouraging conversations, debates, and critical thinking to removing content against the platform’s terms. Not that conversations is unimportant, Dorsey tweeted, “This is the approach we now need.”

As toxic conversations continue in the Twitter-sphere, it has reached the point where the company is asking for public and academic help on how to manage the tweets. Twitter’s growing aggression isn’t just about content. The company has decided to take aim at its users who are perpetrating the abuse on others. 

Just like YouTube, Twitter is a place where users can express their feelings and emotions for their friends and other accounts to see. Although an individual’s opinions can conflict with another’s, users need to think about what is proper and fair to post on the Internet. Twitter trolls are not only targeting corporations but are attacking each other. Comments on both Twitter and YouTube accounts are not only hurtful, but bullying.

As the leaders of these social media sites work on ending the violence, they ask for everyone to follow their lead and restrict their hateful content. Social media has quickly turned into a toxic arena for people to throw fighting words at one another. However, their creators and CEO’s want to turn it around and make its environment something positive.