Mujibullah, a Rohingya refugee, watches a video he shot in Myanmar before crossing over into Bangladesh to Kutupalong refugee camp. For many Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, few had the chance to grab many belongings when they fled. All that remains of their old lives in Myanmar are memories captured in photos and videos on their cellphones. December 23, 2017. —AP Photo/A.M. Ahad
As of 2024, more than 5 billion people—over half of the world’s population—use social media. The immense popularity of these digital networks means that social media is the way that many, if not most people now learn about mass atrocities that are occurring around the world. Yet, beyond their potential to help the public acquire information about mass atrocity situations, could social media platforms be used to help prevent mass atrocities in the first place?
Shannon Raj Singh, the Simon-Skjodt Center's Leonard and Sophie Davis Genocide Prevention Fellow, addresses this question in her report, “Leveraging Social Media for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention: Understanding the Digital Toolbox." The report explores how tools deployed or developed by social media platforms might reduce the risk of mass violence and contribute constructively to mass atrocity prevention efforts.
Aligning Digital Tools with Mass Atrocity Prevention Strategies
The report provides a landscape assessment of the suite of social media product, policy, and operational interventions that may offer the potential to support two core mass atrocity prevention strategies:
Protecting vulnerable civilian populations at risk of mass atrocities, and
Degrading potential perpetrators’ capacity to commit mass atrocities.
Interventions highlighted in the report that offer the potential to protect vulnerable civilians include safeguarding online privacy, securing social media accounts, and surfacing crisis resources and credible information. Interventions offering the potential to degrade the capacity of mass atrocity perpetrators include preventing perpetrators from gaining a foothold on platforms at scale, limiting the presence or visibility of dangerous content, and contextualizing perpetrator-generated content.
This report, along with the Simon-Skjodt Center's “Strategic Framework for Helping Prevent Mass Atrocities” and Tools for Atrocity Prevention website, is meant to help people increase awareness and consideration of the range of potential options for preventing mass atrocities.
Preliminary Recommendations for Social Media Platforms and Policy Makers
Consultations with current and former representatives of social media companies, academics, practitioners, and members of at-risk communities affirm that expanding the mass atrocity prevention toolbox to include digital tools and interventions can help meet contemporary challenges. Yet, they also underscored that these interventions require further research, including on their potential unintended consequences.
The report offers preliminary recommendations to social media platforms and policy makers seeking to contribute constructively to mass atrocity prevention efforts.
For platforms, recommendations include investing in:
Mass atrocity prevention capacity and expertise,
Research and development around social media tools that hold the potential to help prevent mass atrocities, and
Local partnerships that can support awareness of mass atrocity risk dynamics.
For policy makers, recommendations include assessing:
Both risks and opportunities to leverage the digital environment to address the risks of mass violence, and
Opportunities to incorporate social media tools and interventions into mass atrocity prevention strategies.
In addition to the full report, the executive summary and recommendations are also available as a separate document.