New Safe Digital City Analysis: Bodø Youth highly exposed to hate speech, abuse, and extreme content on social media

Categories: News
Udgivet: 21 May - 2024

 

A new analysis from the Safe Digital City initiative shows that young people in Bodø are highly exposed to drug dealing, abuse, and problematic content on Instagram and TikTok.

 

Are young people in Bodø exposed to violent and problematic content on social media? Which groups are most exposed, and what are the risk areas?

To address this issue, Nordic Safe Cities, in collaboration with Analyse & Tall and Common Consultancy, produced the report “Bodø-ungdoms digitale liv: bruk, risiko og konsekvenser” for Bodø municipality, as part of the Safe Digital City initiative. The findings are clear:

Young people in Bodø are highly exposed to abuse, bullying, and problematic content on social media. This highlights the need for measures to protect young people from harmful influences online.

“Bodø’s membership in Nordic Safe Cities has provided us with a clearer picture of the challenges young people face on social media,” says Fred Johan Østli, SLT coordinator in Bodø Municipality.

“The analysis must be actively used in developing preventive measures, which require a broad interdisciplinary effort and good cooperation with the young people themselves and their parents. Our goal is to make Bodø a safer digital city for children and young people, strengthen their digital resilience, and support their parents.”

Offensive content is especially linked to vulnerable groups

The method used combines focus group interviews and digital surveys on Instagram and TikTok, utilizing advanced algorithms to map conversations.

The report identifies an increase in offensive content linked to vulnerable groups in Bodø, particularly the Sami people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those with an immigrant background. Football (especially FK Bodø/Glimt), violence, and minorities are major triggers.

Key findings also include appearance pressure, “fat shaming,” and sexual harassment, particularly towards girls. Boys are exposed to twice as much extreme content as girls, and many have developed a normalized relationship with extreme content, feeling powerless to change it due to its prevalence.

Constructive cooperation

Lotte Fast Carlsen, Deputy Director of Nordic Safe Cities, highlights the constructive cooperation with Bodø municipality.

“We are pleased to contribute to creating a safer digital environment for the municipality, ensuring that Bodø’s youth are less exposed to harmful content on the internet in the future”, Carlsen says.

Sebastian Jørgensen, Head of Digital Prevention in Nordic Safe Cities, elaborates.

“The analysis confirms our assumptions and shows the urgent need to act and safeguard Social media users in Bodø. It is remarkable that the youth of Bodø have such easy access to harmful content and purchase of drugs”, Sebastian Jørgensen says.

Facts & main findings:

As part of Bodø’s membership in Nordic Safe Cities, we have jointly initiated the Safe Digital City program to investigate digital democracy in the city and launch new preventive measures against digital hate, extremism, and polarization.

Through this program, we have explored the digital landscape to gain a better understanding of online trends and risks.

The report “Bodø-ungdoms digitale liv: bruk, risiko og konsekvenser” was produced by Nordic Safe Cities in collaboration with Analyse & Tal and Common Consultancy for Bodø Municipality.

The concept of ‘online risk’ used in the report is defined as violations, disinformation, extreme environments, and fraud.

The method used is a combination of focus group interviews and digital surveys on Instagram and TikTok.

Main findings:

1) Young people in Bodø are to a large extent exposed to abuse, bullying and extreme content on social media, with boys exposed to twice as much extreme content as girls.

2) Abuse and bullying typically occur in private or closed communities, while extreme content is freely promoted on both TikTok and Instagram. Problematic content appears more than twice as often on Instagram Reels than on TikTok.

3) Social media increases pressure on vulnerable groups in Bodø, particularly the Sami, LGBTQ+ individuals, and those with an immigrant background.

4) Many have developed a normalized relationship with extreme content and feel powerless to address it, most likely due to its overwhelming presence.

5) Young people are increasingly encountering content related to drug sales, with Snapchat being a crucial channel for this activity.

6) Several girls in the focus groups report on appearance pressure, “fat shaming”, sexual comments, and unwanted dissemination of images and videos.