Social media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks.[1][2] Common features include:[2]
The term social in regard to media suggests platforms enable communal activity. Social media can enhance and extend human networks.[6] Users access social media through web-based apps or custom apps on mobile devices. These interactive platforms allow individuals, communities, and organizations to share, co-create, discuss, participate in, and modify user-generated or self-curated content.[7][5][1] Social media are used to document memories, learn, and form friendships.[8] They may be used to promote people, companies, products, and ideas.[8] Social media can be used to consume, publish, or share news.
Popular social media platforms with more than 100 million registered users include X, Facebook, WeChat, ShareChat, Instagram, Pinterest, QZone, Weibo, VK, Tumblr, Baidu Tieba, and LinkedIn. Depending on interpretation, other popular platforms that are sometimes referred to as social media services include YouTube, Letterboxd, QQ, Quora, Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, LINE, Snapchat, Pinterest, Viber, Reddit, Discord, TikTok, Microsoft Teams. Wikis are examples of collaborative content creation.
Social media outlets differ from old media (e.g. newspapers, TV, and radio broadcasting) in many ways, including quality,[9] reach, frequency, usability, relevancy, and permanence.[10] Social media outlets operate in a dialogic transmission system (many sources to many receivers) while traditional media operate under a monologic transmission model (one source to many receivers). For instance, a newspaper is delivered to many subscribers, and a radio station broadcasts the same programs to a city.[11]
Observers have noted a range of positive and negative impacts from social media. Social media can help to improve an individual's sense of connectedness with others and be an effective communication (or marketing) tool for corporations, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, political parties, and governments. Social movements use social media for communicating and organizing. Social media has been criticized for a range of negative impacts on children and teenagers, including exposure to inappropriate content, exploitation by adults, sleep problems, attention problems, feelings of exclusion, and various mental health maladies.[12][13]
A 2015 review identified four features unique to social media services:[2]
In 2019, Merriam-Webster defined social media as "forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)."[25]
Mobile social media refers to the use of social media on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. It is distinguished by its ubiquity, since users no longer have to be at desk in order to participate on a computer. Mobile services can further make use of the user's immediate location to offer information, connections, or services relevant to that location.
According to Andreas Kaplan, mobile social media activities fall among four types:[27]
Content moderation[edit]
United States[edit]
Historically, platforms were responsible for moderating the content that they presented. They set rules for what was allowable, decided which content to promote and which to ignore. The US enacted the Communications Decency Act in 1996. Section 230 of that act exempted internet platforms from legal liability for content authored by third parties.
Business models[edit]
The business model of most social media platforms is based on selling slots to advertisers. Platforms provide access to data about each user, which allows them to deliver adds that are individually relevant to them. This strongly incents platforms to arrange their content so that users view as much content as possible, increasing the number of ads that they see. Platforms such as X add paid user subscriptions in part to reduce their dependence on advertising revenues.[236]
