Picture this: you wake up in the morning, reach for your phone and see that ‘beef’ which started as an argument between two people you know is now centre stage on social media, seen by 57,000 people and growing by the minute.

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There are hundreds and hundreds of comments demanding a mass meet-up and violence, with fists, with weapons, but ultimately, violence.

For young people, seeing this type of situation playing out online is the norm. What’s also part of everyday life is whether they are interested in seeing this dispute and subsequent fight footage in live graphic detail or not, it’s more than likely it will turn up in their social media feed anyway.

We know this because new research published today by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) reveals that algorithms promote and serve up violent content that rapidly escalates conflict. We found that social media has changed the scale of arguments, making them public and involving hundreds, sometimes thousands, of complete strangers. And algorithms ensure that those involved and those who aren’t can't escape, intensifying the dispute and........

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