Social Media

China is conducting an unprecedented campaign below the threshold of armed conflict to expand the influence of the Chinese Communist Party and weaken the United States and its partners. This campaign involves sophisticated Chinese espionage activities, offensive cyber operations, disinformation on social media platforms, economic coercion, and influence operations targeting companies, universities, and other organizations. The scale of China’s actions in the United States is unparalleled. This report offers one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of Chinese political warfare activities and examines China’s main actions, primary goals, and options for the United States and its partners.

While media consumption has accelerated during the pandemic, the main currency used for media monetization – advertising spend – has been pulled back across many channels, due to both economic and social concerns. Recently, many brands have halted their spending on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. While the advertising revenue of such platforms is driven largely by small and medium enterprises, events of late may signal a larger shift in focus to the role that one’s business decisions play in driving societal change. For media companies with significant reach and influence over consumers, this responsibility is even more crucial. We assessed how media organizations responded to COVID-19 and addressed their societal responsibility. In this second paper, we focus on the near-term and medium-term actions that can be taken to improve the financial viability, resilience and sustainability of the industry. We focus on four key areas: Creating a stronger media ecosystem across content creation, distribution and consumption innovation. We identified five key areas to drive a stronger media ecosystem: enhanced trust and transparency, better alignment of value with investments, media pluralism, a global community of creators and viewers, and renewed consumer focus. We examined the demonetization of harmful content through initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, in partnership with the Forum’s “Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture” platform. Accelerating digital transformation to drive innovation. Digital distribution is no longer a choice – companies must decide whether to build, buy or partner to increase their digital capabilities.–New digital production methods have created lower-cost and more authentic content – companies should consider how they adopt end-to-end cloud production tools to capture, edit, finalize and distribute content in a single workflow from start to finish. Notable innovation in the use of data-driven tools for revenue projections, content curation and moderation, and user experience will present new decisions for businesses. With a significant increase in cyber threats during the COVID era, businesses need to take practical steps to increase their cyber resilience. Adapting the workforce and ways of working to support the next phase of industry growth. Work has transitioned to home-office settings with varying degrees of effectiveness – businesses should consider what capabilities are needed to operate in a hybrid work model in the future. Worker profiles in demand will be in big data, analytics and revenue-related functions, as well as in security and data privacy, but the industry is unlikely to go back to pre-COVID employment levels. With heavy reliance on freelance and contract work, there is an opportunity to revisit the industry’s duty of care to its workers and reset on its representation of minorities. In addition, employers will need to find new ways to protect employees’ safety and mental health. Supporting responsible business through global sustainable development goals (SDGs) –The urgency to act as responsible media businesses has never been higher, with three-quarters of media chief executive officers recognizing the critical role1 of businesses in society and three out of five consumers claiming to avoid brands that do not demonstrate progress against the goals affecting our society and planet. Businesses should evaluate their impact in terms of environmental and social considerations and reset their activities in line with the SDGs. Responsible leadership is a critical enabler of sustainable governance. Top leaders exhibit five elements of responsible leadership: 1) stakeholder inclusion; 2) emotion and intuition; 3) mission and purpose; 4) technology and innovation; and 5) intellect and insight. At the end of this paper, we identify actions that companies can take immediately, such as reviewing their media investment strategies, employing new brand safety tools, implementing new ways to create an engaged workforce and many others. A number of the companies engaged for this report have already committed to such actions, and we encourage other companies for which these steps are relevant to carry them out within their own businesses. In the final paper of this series, we will highlight the lasting industry shifts that will result from the current crisis and the long-term plans that various parts of the media ecosystem should consider when developing their strategies.

Social media are becoming the dominant source of information for significant parts of our societies. There are numerous positive aspects of these media, such as their ability to mobilise for a political cause. Yet at the same time, social media may sometimes negatively impact the public debate. This paper analyses how social media platforms influence democracy in Western countries and makes recommendations on how to address the risks that arise effectively.
Short-term solutions to eradicate fake news include considering social media platforms as full-fledged media companies-thus regulating them through a revised version of press laws which suits new technologies.
The key long-term solution is developing e-literacy among the general public.