The use of social media is causing a proliferation of violence in the country, PNG researchers says. Photo: Victor Okhrimets / 123RF
The use of social media is causing a proliferation of violence and has become a cause for the escalation of tribal conflict in the country, PNG National Research Institute researcher Joe Barak says.
Speaking to the ABC's Pacific Beat, Barak said researchers used YouTube dataset, inputting terms such as sorcery, tribal fights, and gender based violence (GBV), to extract videos from Papua New Guinea.
The researchers then analysed the comments that were made in reaction to the videos to arrive at their findings - that social media played an important role in the escalation of violence.
"Social media helps to disseminate information. So sometimes when a tribal fight or riot events in one part of the city, the other part of the city will not know that the riot is happening.
"But social media maybe informs them that the riot going on there, then the message spreads, then everybody moves to that place [to] support each other and then they the violence escalates."
Barak told Pacific Beat social media misinforms people when information is was not verified and creates confusion.
However, he agrees that it also has a positive impact on the society.
"The other thing is we can create also positive messages or anti-violence messages or storytelling [which can have a positive impact]."
He said there was a lot of misinformation concerning politics.
"Because we do not have a system that will control the information and validate and then...people will get the right information that they need."
He said the PNG government has developed some laws, but the implentation was lacking.
"The laws are in place but they have to implement. The implementing agencies and communication companies...the government has to work closely with them. People using social media their account needs to be not fake.
"There needs to be a control mechanism in place," he said.