11 Dec 2024 | 10:35 AMUnder YouTube’s changes to its recommendation engine, the most-recommended channel evolved from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones (2016) to Fox News (2019). According to a 2020 study, viewership of far-right videos on YouTube peaked in 2017 and “a growing body of journalistic evidence” suggested that YouTube was radicalizing young men through its recommendation engine, but that such evidence was “fraught with a bias towards sensationalism”. It also found more “mainstream-adjacent Conservative creators” gaining over alt-right and extremist videos by 2020. In September 2020, YouTube announced that it would be launching a beta version of a new platform of 15-second videos, similar to TikTok, called YouTube Shorts. The platform was first tested in India and later expanded to other countries, including the United States in March 2021, with videos now able to be up to 1 minute long.
The primary criticisms for these updates was that Instagram was more like TikTok than photo sharing. The backlash originated from an Instagram post and Change.org petition created by photographer Tati Bruening (under the username @illumitati) on July 23, 2022, featuring the statement “Make Instagram Instagram again. (stop trying to be TikTok; i just want to see cute photos of my friends.) Sincerely, everyone.”. The post and petition gained mainstream attention after influencers Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian reposted the Instagram post; subsequently, the original post gained over 2 million likes on Instagram and over 275,000 signatures on Change.org. In response to abusive and negative comments on users’ photos, Instagram has made efforts to give users more control over their posts and accompanying comments field. In July 2016, it announced that users would be able to turn off comments for their posts, as well as control the language used in comments by inputting words they consider offensive, which will ban applicable comments from showing up. After the July 2016 announcement, the ability to ban specific words began rolling out early August to celebrities, followed by regular users in September.
A subsequent interface change, designed to unify the experience across desktop, TV, and mobile, was rolled out in 2013. By that point, more than 100 hours were being uploaded every minute, increasing to 300 hours by November 2014. On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion (equivalent to $2.39 billion in 2024). Google expanded YouTube’s business model from generating revenue through advertisements alone to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content explicitly produced for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching content without ads. YouTube incorporated the Google AdSense program, generating more revenue for both YouTube and approved content creators.
We encourage people who come across illegal or inappropriate content to report it to us using the built-in reporting tools next to every photo, video or comment, so we can take action. People can’t buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos. Ongoing research continues to explore how media content on the platform affects user engagement.
Despite eventually being taken down, these duplicate uploads of the skit helped popularize YouTube’s reach and led to the upload of more third-party content. The site grew rapidly; in July 2006, the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. Karim said the inspiration for YouTube came from the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy when Janet Jackson’s breast was briefly exposed by Justin Timberlake during the halftime show. Karim could not easily find video clips of the incident and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami online, which led to the idea of a video-sharing site. Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. They created posts on Craigslist asking attractive women to upload videos of themselves to YouTube in exchange for a $100 reward.
On September 28, 2016, YouTube named Lyor Cohen, the co-founder of 300 Entertainment and former Warner Music Group executive, the Global Head of Music. In early 2018, Cohen began hinting at the possible launch of YouTube’s new subscription music streaming service, a platform that would compete with other services such as Spotify and Apple Music. On May 22, 2018, the music streaming platform named “YouTube Music” was launched for people who mostly listen to music on YouTube. In 2014, YouTube announced that it was responsible for the creation of all viral video trends, and revealed previews of upcoming trends, such as “Clocking”, “Kissing Dad”, and “Glub Glub Water Dance”. The next year, YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from “Sandstorm” by Darude. In 2016, YouTube introduced an option to watch every video on the platform in 360-degree mode with Snoop Dogg.
In the U.S., there is relatively little government regulation of social media content, with most content removal taking place on a voluntary basis by the companies. One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts “that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions”. On March 11, 2022, Russia announced it would ban Instagram due to alleged “calls for violence against Russian troops” on the platform during the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On March 14, the ban took effect, with almost 80 million users losing access to Instagram. Instagram along with Facebook are labelled as extremist by Russian government, making it illegal to use with VPN if the law was passed in 17 July 2025 to criminalise searching and accessing to extremist materials even with VPN, with a fines from 3000 to 5000 rubles (€30 to €50) by the 1 September 2025. As of 2014update, Instagram’s users are divided equally, with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners.
In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover both photos and each other. Instagram encourages users to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging generic words like “photo”, to make photographs stand out and to attract like-minded Instagram users. On April 30, 2019, the Windows 10 Mobile app was discontinued, though the mobile website remains available as a progressive web application (PWA) with limited remotemode reviews functionality.
Access to specific videos is sometimes prevented due to copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth, which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with “restricted mode”. Businesses, schools, government agencies, and other private institutions often block social media sites, including YouTube, due to its bandwidth limitations and the site’s potential for distraction. Since its founding in 2005, the American video-sharing website YouTube has been faced with a growing number of privacy issues, including allegations that it allows users to upload unauthorized copyrighted material and allows personal information from young children to be collected without their parents’ consent. YouTube, a video sharing platform, has faced various criticisms over the years, particularly regarding content moderation, offensive content, and monetization. In February 2017, YouTube Go was launched in India, and expanded in November 2017 to 14 other countries, including Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Kenya, and South Africa.
They are distinguished from regular content by the “sponsored” tag under the account name. Despite the “TikTokification” of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. Then Instagram started rolling out a new feature with made Reels up to 90 seconds long beginning in June 2022.
That year, the company simplified its interface to increase the time users would spend on the site. In July 2022, Instagram announced a set of updates which immediately received widespread backlash from its userbase. The changes included a feed more focused on Instagram’s content algorithms, full-screen photo and video posts, and changing the format of all of its videos to Reels.
If a piece of content is labeled false or partly false on Facebook or Instagram then duplicates of such content will also be labeled as false. In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using WebSocket technology. After the update (which is rolled out to a segment of the user base) the Instagram Direct icon transforms into Facebook Messenger icon. The Wall Street Journal reported that some parents are concerned about the effects of short-form videos on their children, as there is no way to disable Instagram or set limits. When children watch short-form videos, they learn to expect continual stimulation and fast-paced changes, which can cause problems when engaging in activities that require greater focus, such as reading. Recent studies highlighted the connection between short-form videos such as Instagram Reels and the brain’s reward system, specifically dopamine release.
In May 2024, YouTube introduced Playables, a set of around 75 free-to-play games that can be played on the platform. In July 2023, YouTube removed the channel of British journalist Graham Phillips, active in covering the war in Donbas from 2014. In August 2023, a Moscow court fined Google 3 million rubles, around $35,000, for not deleting what it said was “fake news about the war in Ukraine”.
Past research has found that media which show people’s faces receive more ‘likes’ and comments and that using filters that increase warmth, exposure, and contrast also boosts engagement. Users are more likely to engage with images that depict fewer individuals compared to groups and they are also more likely to engage with content that has not been watermarked, as they view this content as less original and reliable compared to user-generated content. Recently Instagram has come up with an option for users to apply for a verified account badge; however, this does not guarantee every user who applies will get the verified blue tick. Picardo et al. 2020 examined the relationship between self-harm posts and actual self-harm offline and found such content had negative emotional effects on some users.
9 Sep 2022 | 12:26 AMAdditionally, the employee mustn’t perform any work in the state where the employer is based. To meet this test, the employer must require the employee to work remotely rather than the employee simply choosing to do so out of their own convenience. The “convenience of the employer” test is a set of questions used to […]...
