- The document discusses research on violence in social media. It introduces concepts like Black Twitter and defines violent content. - The research questions examine how social networks enable crime, what types of violent content exist, and if Black Twitter brings more attention to violence. - The methodology included analyzing Black Twitter, articles on oversharing, and academic databases. Results showed Black Twitter has a large reach but isn't mostly violent, and criminals use social media to spread violence among their networks. - In conclusion, violent content is hard to define but social media platforms should still monitor it more closely, and Black Twitter is unlikely to disappear due to its success and role in giving voice to underrepresented groups.

2. Key points
• Introduction and purpose
• Concepts
• Research Questions
• Methodology
• Results
• conclusions

3. Introduction
• Paper introduction:
• Boyden (2012) proclaims, “Social-media networks have resulted in
the over sharing of information.” (p. 39). He continues with the
harsh reality that individuals share all sorts of personal information
without considering the lack of privacy on the Internet. “These
people need to be reminded that there are rules about how much
information must be shared, and with whom—rules that served a
prior generation just fine and continue to govern the Internet, even
if they seem old-fashioned.” (p.1) eight or nine years ago, over
sharing hardly happened as youth utilized social media sites such as
Myspace to simply share their music taste and possibly post a
picture. As a digital age approached, more content became
permitted on the internet and a vast portion of it is violent.

4. Purpose
• The purpose of my paper was to evaluate and measure violence in
social media; to evaluate the growing “Black Twitter” and its
relevance and popularity; and to access what is “violent content” in
social media.
• Agarwal (2012) found, “Another source of exposure to violence is
the Internet and video games” (p. 39).
• There has always been a debate about if violence on the Internet
stimulates violent behavior, but now we need to discuss why so
much violent content is so easily accessible in the first place.
• The bystander effect has not gone away but simply evolved. People
not only stand back when violence is occurring, but they record it
and post it on the internet.
• This has its positive and its negative, and the research I conducted
for this paper evaluates both.

5. Concepts
• Black Twitter – where it came from, why it’s so
popular, what is it all about?
• Sexual Content – it’s not exactly violence, but it is
comparable to violent content. It’s completely
unnecessary and needs to be evaluated. I didn’t
go in depth with this but it is mentioned.
• Violent content – how do you define what’s
violent? How are criminals benefitting? How law
enforcement is utilizing social media to catch
criminals.

6. Research questions
• #1 - how do social networks become
functional for criminal behavior?
• #2 - what types of violent content exists within
social media?
• #3 - is black twitter giving more attention to
violence in social media?

7. Methodology
• I had to narrow my research down to be very specific. Its
hard to measure violent content when the definition of
violence varies.
• I used Black Twitter as my main source for research.
• Research tools: Academic Search Complete, TweetReach
(black twitter), Topsy, Twazzup, Social Mention, NodeXL,
and my own personal research (I looked up black twitter on
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
• I also found interesting articles: The truth about Black
Twitter, No one is safe from black twitter; not even black
people, and articles that discuss oversharing on social
networks.

8. Results (1)
• I found that Black Twitter is very successful.
– It had 55,000 impressions and has reached 43,000 accounts.
There has been 86,000 tweets concerning black twitter in the
past 30 days. This is pretty good for a topic that’s been
trending for awhile.
– Some of the top contributors were interesting. Most weren’t
black, and the top contributor was an art collector.
– Most of the content isn’t violent. It may give awareness to
violence in trying to begin a social movement, but most of the
content is either uplifting or humorous. (Mike Brown, Black
Celebs be like)
– Black Twitter is not limited to the black community. A Pew
Internet study showed that blacks are less likely than whites
to use the Internet.

9. Results (2)
• Criminals use other criminals to become a better criminal.
– Armengol and Zenou (2003) says, “We develop a model in which delinquents
compete with each other in criminal activities but may benefit from being friends
with other criminals by learning and acquiring proper know-how on the crime
business.”
– Gang members especially use social media to spread violence. They have their
own social structure and social connections. Post a video towards your target and
you can bet it will spread to them.
• Defining violent content depends on the person. Violence is defined as exertion of
physical force so as to injure or abuse. Violent content on the internet can include
physical fights, threats to other users or Bullying. But yet again, its complicated and
hard to define.
• I came to the conclusion that violent content on social media has its positives and
negatives.
– It benefits law enforcement because it helps them catch criminals, but it’s sad
that social media is the platform for the violent content.

10. Conclusions
• The best thing any individual who uses the internet can do is be
cautious and respectful when sharing content.
• Due to the fact that “violent content” varies, there are many
limitations to this kind of research.
• Despite these limitations, each social media platform needs to do
a better job of monitoring the violent or sexual content it allows.
• In regards to Black Twitter, I don’t think its going anywhere. The
black community has felt unheard and ignored for awhile. I do
believe the network should change its name to something less
intimidating, but with its success on social media it should
continue.
• I would like to believe that the Internet will have a clean sweep
and all of the violent/ sexual content will disappear, but sadly it
will probably get worse. As technology advances, the content shall
too.