“Disgusting”, “horrific”, “terrible”, and “at best, highly irresponsible”.

These were just a few of the opinions expressed by Courier readers following our investigation into social media pages Rebreak News and Rebreak Scotland.

We revealed earlier this month how the site had been accused of humiliating children, glorifying antisocial behaviour and even potentially putting criminal trials at risk through the content it shared.

Parents, anti-violence campaigners, former police officers and even a bus company spoke out.

People were right to be horrified.

There was little and often no justification for the sharing of these videos and images.

Pages like Rebreak are still getting away with it

But what is equally horrifying is that hardly anyone has bothered to do anything about it – and that means pages like Rebreak are still getting away with it.

To the shock of no one in The Courier newsroom, the site has been at the centre of controversy once again in recent days.

Bosses at the Overgate felt compelled to call the Rebreak Scotland Facebook page out when it posted a video claiming an assault had been filmed in the shopping centre.

Those running the site eventually changed the caption to admit their error.

But they left the original post on their X page and failed to correct the misinformation – it was still there at the time of writing.

What’s more, while there was a half-hearted attempt to censor the video when shared on Facebook, no such efforts were made on X – where the victim’s identity was clear for all to see.

The site also came in for further criticism from anti-knife campaigner Kris Boyle, who accused Rebreak of glamourising crime after it shared more videos of violent incidents.

Facebook is run by Meta, the social media giant that also owns Instagram.

We previously put our findings to the company three times via its press office. On all three occasions, we were roundly ignored.

Meta does respond to media inquiries – it sent a comment to BBC News this month after allegations about harmful content on its sites – so there’s no excuse for its failure to reply to The Courier.

During our investigation, TikTok – another platform used by Rebreak – at least engaged with us. But its response felt half-hearted.

When offered several examples of content that we deemed inappropriate, the platform responded by deleting one fight video.

However, many others, including ones showing violence involving youngsters and acts of vandalism, remained on the Rebreak account.

Give Snapchat its due – the platform, hugely popular with youngsters, took swift action to delete at least two Rebreak accounts after we highlighted them.

New ones quickly sprang up, but at least Snapchat showed some will to do something.

The same can’t be said for Elon Musk’s notorious X, formerly Twitter, which seems to be the home for the worst of Rebreak’s content.

It doesn’t even advertise contact details for its press office, and several emails we sent to various addresses didn’t get any response.

None of this was particularly surprising.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen complaints about a lack of action from social media firms on harmful or inappropriate content.

This week, online firms were further in the spotlight after a landmark ruling in the US found Meta and YouTube liable in a social media addiction trial.

Given the growing public concern about the activities of the social media sites, I thought – perhaps naively – that a government or regulator might be keen to make an example of someone following our investigation.

A dozen fines is hardly likely to spark social media companies into action

The Dundee-based north-east Scotland list MSP Michael Marra even raised the matter with his Labour counterparts at Westminster.

It is their responsibility to regulate online content.

When we asked the UK Government for its response to Mr Marra’s concerns, it boasted how its Online Safety Act is “crystal clear” in stating platforms must protect children from harmful content, “including content encouraging violence, and remove illegal material from everyone’s feeds”.

It added: “Ofcom has the full backing of the government to go after those who fail to act.”

Ofcom is the UK’s regulator for communications services. That includes TV, radio, mobile phones and the internet.

We contacted Ofcom with our findings on the back of the UK Government’s statement.

A spokesperson told us it was not its job to tell social media sites which specific posts or accounts to take down, and instead, it was there to ensure platforms have “appropriate measures in place to comply with their duties”.

That prompted calls for stronger action from Dundee’s two MPs.

Ofcom responded to those calls by admitting that “there is still much to do”, but warned that it will “act” if the right protections are not in place for those using these platforms.

The regulator added that it had investigated nearly 100 platforms and issued nearly a dozen fines in relation to the Online Safety Act.

A dozen fines is hardly likely to spark the multi-million-pound empires that run these sites into action.

As for Rebreak News, it continues to share content that directly contradicts its claims that it doesn’t show names and faces in its videos, or that it is not responsible for fuelling crime and antisocial behaviour.

And this cycle will simply continue unless the social media firms are held to far higher standards.

This week, out of interest, I reported a video shared by Rebreak that showed a man pinned to the ground in Dundee city centre with a bloodied face, including a close-up of his face (remember: Rebreak doesn’t show people’s faces).

Apparently, that doesn’t breach Facebook’s community standards.

Can anyone else do anything about inappropriate social media content?

Meta is seemingly happy for users to see a video of a clearly injured man on their feeds, and happy for a video of this man to be shared without any efforts to protect his privacy.

So can anyone else do anything about this? In short, no.

Some of our readers have questioned why Police Scotland isn’t getting involved.

But police don’t really have any remit here.

Officers can investigate someone committing a crime on a social media platform – for example, if a person posts a hateful message or an explicit video of another person – but they have little control over the operation of individual pages and what content gets removed.

The Scottish Government is in a similar position.

Rebreak could put a stop to this

There is one group of people who could put a stop to this: those running the Rebreak accounts.

But given they have effectively laughed this all off and ignored our repeated attempts to engage with them, I won’t hold my breath.

It’s going to take someone else to step in and sort this out, but as things stand, no one appears to have the guts for the fight.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to do what we can at The Courier to hold everyone involved in this sorry situation to account.

Bryan Copland is the deputy head of news and sport at The Courier

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