Aug 16, 2025
@summer-of-bad-batch
Week 11: bonus prompt: injury
Batcher deserves a chance to retaliate
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@summer-of-bad-batch
Week 11: bonus prompt: injury
Batcher deserves a chance to retaliate
he looks like a little kid who asks if you have games on your phone 😭💕
Why Is Everyone So Angry Online? Maybe Because Anger Gets More Likes 📱⚠️ Have you ever noticed that some of the most viral content online is not always the most creative or meaningful?🤔 Sometimes the videos with millions of views are the ones that make people angry 😭.
A controversial opinion, an intentionally bad cooking video or a creator saying something ridiculous will get millions of comments and reactions
And that is where things become interesting. What if the real purpose of a viral post was to make people angry enough to comment and share to keep the conversation going? 👀
Social Media Was Built For Connection… But Conflict Became Part Of It ⚠️ Social media was originally to be a space where people could connect, share ideas and engage with communities across the world. It enabled the ordinary users the opportunity to join in conversations that were once controlled by traditional media and institutions. But digital spaces are also places where conflict, disagreement and power exists. MediaSmarts (2022) defines digital citizenship as a responsibility to engage in digital environments in a responsible and ethical way.
Meanwhile, social media governance involves the way social media are governed by policy, content moderation, community guidelines and technologies systems that determine what kinds of behaviour are encouraged or restricted (Kumar & Gupta, 2023). Sometimes conflict is planned🎭. Welcome To The World of Rage Bait 🤬🎣 In the past, trolling was often associated with anonymous users who posted offensive comments simply to annoy other people.
However, trolling has evolved into a content strategy where some creators will produce controversial or annoying content on purpose because they know anger can get attention 💀.
This strategy is known as "rage bait" - content that trigger strong emotional reactions especially anger so audience will interact through comments, shares and debates (Aktay, 2025).
The strange thing is that the algorithm does not necessarily care whether people are making positive or negative comments. Both reactions are considered engagement. Human attention is a strategic resource as user engagement is converted into data, visibility and advertising profit. Each comment and reaction can be valuable because it keeps users active on the platform.
When Food Waste Becomes A Strategy For Views 😡 A popular rage bait on TikTok is by a content creator Wasil Daoud who gained fame for making videos about excessive food waste. Many viewers found his content to be wasteful especially as he pours large amounts of ice cream, chocolate syrup and other food into the oversized bowl.
Users watched because they were shocked, frustrated and wanted to criticise the behaviour 😤.
Many viewers did not watch because they enjoyed the videos. Instead, they watched because they were frustrated and wanted to criticise the behaviour. People left angry comments, even shared the videos to criticise them and debated whether the content should even exist online.
Every comment, share and argument became engagement that allows the algorithm to recognise the content as popular and push it to even more users. Sometimes, outrage itself becomes the reason why content succeeds 🔥. Rage Bait Exists In Local Content Too 🇲🇾 Well, rage bait is not limited to international creators. Local social media content can also generate attention through creating conflict and curiosity including public debate. The viral ST Rosyam Mart “couple argument” video, where a man and woman were seen having a heated argument inside the supermarket.
The video quickly went viral, with many viewers questioning whether the argument was genuine or a scripted marketing strategy to attract attention. While some viewers were curious about the situation, others criticised the campaign as misleading and an unethical way of creating unnecessary drama for publicity.
It shows that controversy can become a powerful form of engagement, where conflict itself helps content spread across social media platforms.
But What Happens When Conflict Becomes Harmful? 🚨 Not all online arguments are harmless entertainment.
Online harassment research shows that online conflict can escalate into serious issues such as cyberbullying, attacks, hate speech and coordinated harassment (Schoenebeck et al., 2023).
One important issue is gendered harassment where women and gendered minorities often receive attacks based on their appearance, gender identity and sexuality, not just their opinions (Enock et al., 2026).
This shows that not everyone is equally affected by online conflict. Sometimes, legal action is required in extreme cases. Governments across the world have introduced laws relating to cyber harassment, online threats and harmful digital behaviour ⚖️. However, legal solutions are complicated because governments must balance user safety with the protection of freedom of speech.
So... Who is Responsible? The Users or The Platforms?🤔 This is probably one of the biggest questions in social media governance. Users have a responsibility to practise good digital citizenship by thinking critically before participating in online conflict. Sometimes, responding to harmful content is necessary. But there are also times when commenting is just a way of giving attention to people who are intentionally seeking outrage.
But the responsibility shouldn't be entirely on the users. Social media companies also have a responsibility through corporate social responsibility (CSR) to create healthier digital environments. This includes upgrading moderation systems to make platforms safer and rethinking algorithms that reward harmful engagement (Rehan et al., 2024)
So if a platform is making profits from the conflict, can it really claim to be completely neutral? 👀 Maybe The Real Product Is Our Anger 🌙 The most uncomfortable truth about rage bait is that it shows how the modern internet works. Success online is no longer only about creating the best content. It is all about grabbing attention and anger is one of the easiest feeling to grab.
Of course, not all arguments on the internet are bad. Social media has also allowed important debates, activism and social change to happen✊. But as digital citizens, we need to recognise the difference between meaningful discussion and content that is intentionally provoking us for views.
So the next time a video makes you immediately want to open the comment section and argue because it made you angry… maybe pause for a moment 😭. Ask yourself: Am I actually contributing to a real conversation or just turning my anger into someone else’s views?💀 References Aktay, H. (2025, December 2). Rage Bait | KÜRE Encyclopedia. Kureansiklopedi.com. https://kureansiklopedi.com/en/detay/rage-bait-e43f6 Enock, F. E., Stevens, F., Sippy, T., Bright, J., Cross, M., Johansson, P., Wajcman, J., & Margetts, H. Z. (2026). Gendered inequalities in online harms: Fear, safety work, and online participation. Computers in Human Behavior, 181, 108990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2026.108990 Kumar, A. M., & Gupta, S. (2023). Governance of Social Media Platforms: A Literature Review. Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.17705/1pais.15103 MediaSmarts. (2022, August 8). What is Digital Citizenship?. https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/general-information/digital-media-literacy-fundamentals/what-digital-citizenship Rehan, M., Bukhari, S. S., & Aamir, A. A. (2024). Digital Media’s Influence on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Public Perception of Brands. ResearchGate, 3(10), 131–137. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385812855_Digital_Media
Schoenebeck, S., Lampe, C., & Triệu, P. (2023). Online Harassment: Assessing Harms and Remedies. Social Media + Society, 9(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157297
😚😚
6’6 grown man but he’s just so adorable to me 🥹
Mike Nowack
Week 11 Recap! 👻✨
11 Weeks down! If you just found our page, or you missed a day this week, this recap is for you! 💜
Links for Week 11 are below the cut! ⬇️
that is a LARGE man
@summer-of-bad-batch
Week 11: Alternate prompt: A call from the past
An old friend comes to request help from the bad batch (specifically for Tech to decode imperial intel)
On social media governance and its significance despite lasting controversy.
We love free speech, don’t we? Yet we should not argue that everything comes with a price, and nothing should be brought too far. It’s the same for freedom of speech, especially when it is applied in the digital space. This is one of the most overlooked topics as people take social media for granted, for how it is, and they often forget the severity of a poor digital health environment and the implications it brings.
This is not an article against freedom, but an affirmation to monitor and moderate digital behaviours to secure true freedom. For the better of everyone.
Rhodes’ pioneering work Understanding Governance (1997) identified six different meanings given to the term governance, and suggests that it ‘really has no meaning’. Rosenau and Czempiel (1992) wrote about ‘governing without government’. Scholars have developed mind-opening perspectives to the concept of governance each time. That itself speaks to the importance of the word ‘governance’.
Meanwhile the International centre for governance and policy (2024) defines governance as follows:
“the system of rules, processes, and institutions that ensures a government and public organisations function effectively, transparently, and accountably.”
Cyberbullying remains the top issue on social media. Though differently, its claws are reaching our children. In the UK, the #NoSnowflake online tolerance issue has highlighted deteriorating digital wellbeing among students as online behaviour among young adults push towards increasing violence and degrading mental health. Recent case studies and UN polls reveal that global cyberbullying is escalating, with around two-thirds of children experiencing online harassment. These studies highlight an increase in malicious incidents, such as social exclusion on WhatsApp, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and targeted digital exploitation.
In the face of escalating problems, social media governance stands as the only cup in preventing deeper repercussions. Some countries have imposed the underage social media bans such as Australia and Malaysia, by enacting legislation—enforced through mandatory platform age verification linked to government-issued records that prohibits children under 16 from independently owning or operating accounts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
The escalating problem cannot be addressed by isolated national laws alone. As the UN data shows, the issue is a global phenomenon. Platform self-governance, primarily through community guidelines and content moderation, has proven woefully insufficient. The sheer scale of content uploads makes perfect enforcement impossible, and the reactive nature of reporting systems places the burden of triggering action on the victims. The recent Indian controversy referenced in the tweet IndiaToday, which involved a high-profile case of online harassment and the platform's delayed response, is a stark example of this systemic failure (India Today, 2012). It underscores the gap between a platform's public commitment to safety and its operational realities, where complex content decisions are often outsourced to automated systems and overburdened human moderators.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is investigating content linked to Facebook page The Coverage Me
This brings us back to the core of governance as defined by the International Centre: a system ensuring effective, transparent, and accountable function. For social media, this system must be a tripartite model involving:
Platforms adopting “safety by design” principles, auditing their algorithms for societal harm, and providing transparent data to independent researchers.
Governments enacting coherent, rights-based legislation that sets clear standards for platform duty of care, particularly towards children.
Civil society acting as essential watchdogs, conducting audits, supporting victims, and fostering digital literacy programs that builds resilience on the frontline.
The goal is not to sanitize the internet of all offensive speech, which is neither possible nor desirable, but to architect digital spaces where the most severe psychological harms—like coordinated harassment campaigns and the non-consensual spread of intimate imagery—are systematically deterred and addressed. This is the "price" of a sustainable digital commons: a shared commitment to governance structures that protect the vulnerable. Without it, the promise of digital connection devolves into a marketplace of abuse, corroding the very social fabric that these platforms claim to build. True digital freedom is not the absence of rules, but the presence of a fair and accountable system that prevents the tyranny of the mob and protects the right to participate without fear.
Week 11: Digital Citizenship and Conflict: Social Media Governance
References:
India Today [@IndiaToday]. (2012, May 22). In the face of escalating problems, social media governance stands as the only cup in preventing deeper [Tweet]. Twitter. https://x.com/IndiaToday/status/2061773926343352793
International Centre for Governance and Policy. (2024, March 28). What is governance and what do we mean by good governance? Govcentre. https://govcentre.org/what-is-governance-and-what-do-we-mean-by-good-governance/
New Straits Times. (2026, June 5). MCMC probes coverage media content after public complaints. New Straits Times. https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2026/06/1455978/mcmc-probes-coverage-media-content-after-public-complaints
Rhodes, R. A. W. (1997). Understanding governance: Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Open University Press.
Rosenau, J. N., & Czempiel, E. O. (Eds.). (1992). Governance without government: Order and change in world politics. Cambridge University Press.
UNICEF. (2019, September 3). UNICEF poll: Cyberbullying a global phenomenon; One in three young people in 30 countries say they have been a victim of online bullying. UNICEF Joint Press Releases. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-poll-cyberbullying-global-phenomenon