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Social Media

Most social media platforms emerged fewer than 10 years ago, yet they have fundamentally shifted information gathering, organising, networking and communications activities for asylum-seekers and receiving countries. Platforms can also be used and targeted by governments.

A (Optimist)

Regulated, mediated and trustworthy social media provide reliable information while respecting privacy by default

  • Migrants can inform and educate themselves in their surroundings (environment, context, culture), which leads to a bottom-up transformation towards more equality in society
  • Using social media to make up for missed professional education (during transit, or due to conflict) is possible
  • Successful social media campaigns, policies, and technologies to dismantle fake news, curtail hate speech, and remove fake accounts used to seed discontent
  • Social media fall under new standards and regulations. These regulations put ethical concerns ahead of profitability

B (Pessimist)

Completely deregulated social media increases extremism, criminal exploitation, and enables government oppression

  • Criminal networks continue to use social media to organise and conduct migrant-smuggling activities, including smuggling of asylum seekers
  • Information shared on social media is harnessed by national authorities to identify minority, vulnerable groups, and repress freedom of expression
  • Increased dependency on social media by third-country nationals allows increased oppression by governments
  • Social media is linked to a global increase of minority persecution
  • Social media further funnel users to (religious) extremism and eventually to acts of terrorism

C1 (Mediator)

Social media follow international regulation on minimal standards to limit misinformation and damaging content

  • Databases on asylum seekers remain non-uniform and inaccurate, introducing bias and mistakes to the processes of international protection
  • Under societal pressure, social media platforms dramatically improve the self-regulation of damaging content
  • Successful campaigns by “unsuccessful refugees” to discourage further dangerous journeys by fellow citizens in third countries

C2 (Mediator)

Geospatially restricted social media landscape further limits access to information, and enables censorship and surveillance

  • Unregulated social media are harnessed to track and anticipate migratory flows, enabling receiving nations to better prepare for increases of refugees
  • Social media’s use of biased analytics methods and incomplete databases create or enhance inaccuracies in the processing of international protection claims
  • Intra-platform competition puts ethical corporate behaviour at odds with profitability
  • Social media are no longer used by both agencies and asylum seeking migrants given known problems in database accuracy, and data authenticity

D (Innovator)

New technologies enable deeper integration of next generation communications

  • ‘Metaverse’ social technologies provide safe and secure virtual spaces for oppressed social groups
  • Virtual worlds increase employment opportunities that can be performed nearly anywhere
  • Virtual spaces effectively blur the line between physical and digital for social and cultural life