NIck Layman's Blog

In 1997, platforms such as Bolt and Six Degrees were launched out onto the world wide web. Six Degrees is widely accepted to be on the first social media platforms constructed by Andrew Weinreich. The premise of the website “allowed users to create a profile and list their interests, and then connect with others who shared similar interests.“. The features that Six Degrees included were bulletins, messaging, and adding a list of friends. In a way, Six Degrees laid the framework for modern day social media platforms. However, the company would shutdown in 2000 due to not being able to gain traction and being before its time. This was the beginning of the evolution of social media as platforms such as MySpace, Friendster, and Orkut would begin to pop up all along the web. At first, social media started out with good intentions trying to connect friends and family across the web. However, this idea would slowly devolve overtime to what it is currently today.

For this article, we will be reviewing the social media platforms Instagram (Meta) and X. More specifically, we will be going over how they combat misinformation and how they enforce their rules on their platforms. As of January 2024, Instagram has the fourth most amount of active monthly followers while X trails them in twelfth place worldwide. In the United States, the social media landscape is little different. In March of 2024, based on share of platform visits Instagram comes in third (14.13% of visits) while X comes in forth with (10.91% of visits).

Instagram (Meta) History & Policy:

Once upon a time in 2010, Instagram launched as its own independent social media platform on IOS. The purpose of the app was simple, share photos and fifteen second videos with friends and followers. The founders of Instagram Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger revolutionized the way social media was presented with just a simple idea. On April 9, 2012 Instagram was sold to Facebook (Meta) for one billion dollar along with stock options to the developers. Since Meta has taken over they have optimized the app for the sole purpose making money and keeping users on the application. The biggest change that Meta made to Instagram after acquiring app was to repurpose its photocentric brand to a video based app. As the evolution of this app continued features such as advertising, influencer marketing, stories, reels, metrics, and other features were introduced. These features not only changed the app but also significantly changed global culture for better or worse.

Meta in general across all of its companies is no stranger to unethical business practices. They have routinely lied on many topics such as the effects of their products on people, lying about or withholding numbers for platform studies, hiding numbers about misinformation, monopolistic attitude towards other businesses, trying to keep users more engaged regardless of repercussions, lying to the public, and having all types of criminal activity on their platforms. The Facebook Files published by The Wall Street Journal does an excellent job outlining just some of the many problems Meta creates. Instagram is no stranger to controversy as it has dealt with illegal activity on the site since its inception. In 2013, Instagram needed to take action after finding users advertising illegal drugs on their app. This lead the company to take action by blocking out specific hashtags and going after users that were in violation of community guidelines. Just yesterday, Instagram (& Meta) announced that they will begin to blur out nudity in direct messaging to stop sexual extortion. In Instagrams guidelines it states that “Offering sexual services, buying or selling firearms, alcohol, and tobacco products between private individuals, and buying or selling non-medical or pharmaceutical drugs are also not allowed.”. They may say this but it is impossible to enforce because of the volume of content that is on the application.

When it comes to misinformation, Instagram states it is able to combat misinformation by “Making false information harder to find, Using technology to find the same false information, Labeling posts with false information warnings, and Removing content and accounts that go against Community Guidelines.”. Like I stated previously, it is impossible to stop the spread of fake information due to the sheer volume of content. Mark Zuckerberg claims that AI detection systems will be able to curb this in the future. However, we are far away from large language learning model that will be able to combat misinformation on a scale that he is talking about.

It is impossible to be able to curb misinformation on Facebook and Instagram. If I were the CEO of Meta, I would have a disclaimer before anyone uses my product. Metas social media sites is a metaphor for the world in the sense that it’s disturbingly violent and beautiful with whole bunch of grey area in between. These social media sites need to be reconfigured and Meta needs to be transparent.

X History and Policies:

Twitter (X) was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006. Twitter’s goal is to “connect its users and allow them to share their thoughts with their followers and others through the use of hashtags. It can be a source of news, entertainment and a marketing tool for businesses.”. Eventually in 2010, Twitter announced that it began allow ads on its website and application. In 2013, the company went public allowing the public to invest in the company. Twitter has had its fair share of controversies over its time and there are one too many to count. However, the biggest scandal Twitter faced was suppression of information and censorship when the Twitter files dropped. All of this fall out came after the acquisition of the company by Elon Musk from April 14th to October 27th of 2022.

There have been since the reconstruction and rebranding of Twitter to X. Elon musk fired eighty percent of the original staff claiming that many of those positions were for maintaining “glorified activist group”. Since then, Musk has been working hard behind the scene to reinforce free speech and harbor a town hall like platform. Many of the issue X still faces are “Trolling, harassment, and the spread of misinformation became pervasive issues, leading to concerns about user safety and the platform’s role in societal discourse.”. X has made strides in taking in re-enforcing its policies like suspending Kanye West for anti-semitic comments for example. Elon Musk has also publicly announced going after bots on the platform. However “X hasn’t shared data about how many bots are on the platform and it’s unclear if it intends to share the results of its bot purge.”. In order to combat misinformation, X either removed or labels all content (Right or left) that may be misleading or cause social unrest. They use X continues to try to crack down on the artificial amplification of content. “You may not use X’s services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience on X.”. X also states that you may not interpret individuals, groups, or organizations. You also cannot manipulate news. The installation of fact checking tweets has helped people including myself understand what is real from what is fake on the platform tenfold.

When comparing X to Instagram, it is my personal opinion that X takes their guidelines more seriously that Instagram. This purley has to do with the actions taken and the track records of both companies. However, both companies need to better job writing a disclaimer before allowing individuals to use their products.