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How Can Social Media Make History?

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Clay Shirky: How Can Social Media Make History?

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode The Power Of Crowds .

Watch this Talk on TED.com .

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The Power of Crowds

About Clay Shirky's TEDTalk

The history of the modern world could read as a history of ways of arguing, social media guru Clay Shirky says. During the Arab Spring, for example, we saw protesters battle their governments' top-down control of news with Facebook, Twitter and text messaging.

As media evolve, Shirky asks, what sort of arguments will we have — and how will it change the governments of nations ?

essay about how social media can make history

"Historically, we have overestimated the value of access to information, and we have always underestimated the value of access to each other." — Clay Shirky Michael Femia/TED hide caption

"Historically, we have overestimated the value of access to information, and we have always underestimated the value of access to each other." — Clay Shirky

About Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky is an adjunct professor in New York Universityʼs graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program , where he teaches a course named Social Weather . He's the author of several books, including his most recent, Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators .

Shirky's work focuses on the rise of networks and the use of decentralized technologies for social creation and open-source development. "A group is its own worst enemy," he says; new technologies can enable cooperative structures as alternatives to centralized and institutional structures.

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How Social Media Can Make History

Clay Shirky's latest book is "Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age"

In the latest in my series of Wade’s Favorite Ted Talks, Clay Shirky, a writer, professor, and consultant, delivered the following embedded presentation to the US State Department regarding the transformed media landscape.

According to Shirky, whose consulting firm develops decentralized technologies such as wireless networks and peer-to-peer, what matters in today’s communication “is not technical capital…it is social capital.” He continues that it “isn’t when shiny, new tools show up that their uses start permeating society. It is when everybody is able to take them for granted” that they become truly useful.

This is exactly where I believe we are with this WordPress newsletter. Our idea was to bring dynamic content to OIT and foster more discussion and communication through better social media tools. As yet, we are barely utilizing the social media aspects of our shiny, new Scholarblog after three months and over 80 articles. Although our readership has returned to the levels we achieved from our previous Cascade-based offering, we are still learning how to use all of the bells and whistles of WordPress.

As Shirky notes, the power of social media turns us simultaneously into consumers AND producers of information. Therefore, as you watch this fascinating look into the power of social media, think about ways you can use the media buttons that line the top of all of our articles or about the comments you can exchange with every author.

Then tweet this article.

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Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

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How social media can make history - Clay Shirky

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Let’s Begin…

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter, and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics.

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Why social media has changed the world — and how to fix it

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Sinan Aral and his new book The Hype Machine

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Are you on social media a lot? When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago?

If so, you are not alone — which is the point, of course. Humans are highly social creatures. Our brains have become wired to process social information, and we usually feel better when we are connected. Social media taps into this tendency.

“Human brains have essentially evolved because of sociality more than any other thing,” says Sinan Aral, an MIT professor and expert in information technology and marketing. “When you develop a population-scale technology that delivers social signals to the tune of trillions per day in real-time, the rise of social media isn’t unexpected. It’s like tossing a lit match into a pool of gasoline.”

The numbers make this clear. In 2005, about 7 percent of American adults used social media. But by 2017, 80 percent of American adults used Facebook alone. About 3.5 billion people on the planet, out of 7.7 billion, are active social media participants. Globally, during a typical day, people post 500 million tweets, share over 10 billion pieces of Facebook content, and watch over a billion hours of YouTube video.

As social media platforms have grown, though, the once-prevalent, gauzy utopian vision of online community has disappeared. Along with the benefits of easy connectivity and increased information, social media has also become a vehicle for disinformation and political attacks from beyond sovereign borders.

“Social media disrupts our elections, our economy, and our health,” says Aral, who is the David Austin Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Now Aral has written a book about it. In “The Hype Machine,” published this month by Currency, a Random House imprint, Aral details why social media platforms have become so successful yet so problematic, and suggests ways to improve them.

As Aral notes, the book covers some of the same territory as “The Social Dilemma,” a documentary that is one of the most popular films on Netflix at the moment. But Aral’s book, as he puts it, "starts where ‘The Social Dilemma’ leaves off and goes one step further to ask: What can we do about it?”

“This machine exists in every facet of our lives,” Aral says. “And the question in the book is, what do we do? How do we achieve the promise of this machine and avoid the peril? We’re at a crossroads. What we do next is essential, so I want to equip people, policymakers, and platforms to help us achieve the good outcomes and avoid the bad outcomes.”

When “engagement” equals anger

“The Hype Machine” draws on Aral’s own research about social networks, as well as other findings, from the cognitive sciences, computer science, business, politics, and more. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, for instance, have found that people obtain bigger hits of dopamine — the chemical in our brains highly bound up with motivation and reward — when their social media posts receive more likes.

At the same time, consider a 2018 MIT study by Soroush Vosoughi, an MIT PhD student and now an assistant professor of computer science at Dartmouth College; Deb Roy, MIT professor of media arts and sciences and executive director of the MIT Media Lab; and Aral, who has been studying social networking for 20 years. The three researchers found that on Twitter, from 2006 to 2017, false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true ones. Why? Most likely because false news has greater novelty value compared to the truth, and provokes stronger reactions — especially disgust and surprise.

In this light, the essential tension surrounding social media companies is that their platforms gain audiences and revenue when posts provoke strong emotional responses, often based on dubious content.

“This is a well-designed, well-thought-out machine that has objectives it maximizes,” Aral says. “The business models that run the social-media industrial complex have a lot to do with the outcomes we’re seeing — it’s an attention economy, and businesses want you engaged. How do they get engagement? Well, they give you little dopamine hits, and … get you riled up. That’s why I call it the hype machine. We know strong emotions get us engaged, so [that favors] anger and salacious content.”

From Russia to marketing

“The Hype Machine” explores both the political implications and business dimensions of social media in depth. Certainly social media is fertile terrain for misinformation campaigns. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russia spread false information to at least 126 million people on Facebook and another 20 million people on Instagram (which Facebook owns), and was responsible for 10 million tweets. About 44 percent of adult Americans visited a false news source in the final weeks of the campaign.

“I think we need to be a lot more vigilant than we are,” says Aral.

We do not know if Russia’s efforts altered the outcome of the 2016 election, Aral says, though they may have been fairly effective. Curiously, it is not clear if the same is true of most U.S. corporate engagement efforts.

As Aral examines, digital advertising on most big U.S. online platforms is often wildly ineffective, with academic studies showing that the “lift” generated by ad campaigns — the extent to which they affect consumer action — has been overstated by a factor of hundreds, in some cases. Simply counting clicks on ads is not enough. Instead, online engagement tends to be more effective among new consumers, and when it is targeted well; in that sense, there is a parallel between good marketing and guerilla social media campaigns.

“The two questions I get asked the most these days,” Aral says, “are, one, did Russia succeed in intervening in our democracy? And two, how do I measure the ROI [return on investment] from marketing investments? As I was writing this book, I realized the answer to those two questions is the same.”

Ideas for improvement

“The Hype Machine” has received praise from many commentators. Foster Provost, a professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says it is a “masterful integration of science, business, law, and policy.” Duncan Watts, a university professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the book is “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how we got here and how we can get somewhere better.”

In that vein, “The Hype Machine” has several detailed suggestions for improving social media. Aral favors automated and user-generated labeling of false news, and limiting revenue-collection that is based on false content. He also calls for firms to help scholars better research the issue of election interference.

Aral believes federal privacy measures could be useful, if we learn from the benefits and missteps of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and a new California law that lets consumers stop some data-sharing and allows people to find out what information companies have stored about them. He does not endorse breaking up Facebook, and suggests instead that the social media economy needs structural reform. He calls for data portability and interoperability, so “consumers would own their identities and could freely switch from one network to another.” Aral believes that without such fundamental changes, new platforms will simply replace the old ones, propelled by the network effects that drive the social-media economy.

“I do not advocate any one silver bullet,” says Aral, who emphasizes that changes in four areas together — money, code, norms, and laws — can alter the trajectory of the social media industry.

But if things continue without change, Aral adds, Facebook and the other social media giants risk substantial civic backlash and user burnout.

“If you get me angry and riled up, I might click more in the short term, but I might also grow really tired and annoyed by how this is making my life miserable, and I might turn you off entirely,” Aral observes. “I mean, that’s why we have a Delete Facebook movement, that’s why we have a Stop Hate for Profit movement. People are pushing back against the short-term vision, and I think we need to embrace this longer-term vision of a healthier communications ecosystem.”

Changing the social media giants can seem like a tall order. Still, Aral says, these firms are not necessarily destined for domination.

“I don’t think this technology or any other technology has some deterministic endpoint,” Aral says. “I want to bring us back to a more practical reality, which is that technology is what we make it, and we are abdicating our responsibility to steer technology toward good and away from bad. That is the path I try to illuminate in this book.”

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Prof. Sinan Aral’s new book, “The Hype Machine,” has been selected as one of the best books of the year about AI by Wired . Gilad Edelman notes that Aral’s book is “an engagingly written shortcut to expertise on what the likes of Facebook and Twitter are doing to our brains and our society.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Danny Crichton of TechCrunch about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the future of social media. Aral notes that he believes a starting point “for solving the social media crisis is creating competition in the social media economy.”

New York Times

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with New York Times editorial board member Greg Bensinger about how social media platforms can reduce the spread of misinformation. “Human-in-the-loop moderation is the right solution,” says Aral. “It’s not a simple silver bullet, but it would give accountability where these companies have in the past blamed software.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with NPR’s Michael Martin about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the benefits and downfalls posed by social media. “I've been researching social media for 20 years. I've seen its evolution and also the techno utopianism and dystopianism,” says Aral. “I thought it was appropriate to have a book that asks, 'what can we do to really fix the social media morass we find ourselves in?'”

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Pictured (left to right): Seated, Soroush Vosoughi, a postdoc at the Media Lab's Laboratory for Social Machines; Sinan Aral, the David Austin Professor of Management at MIT Sloan; and Deb Roy, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab, who also served as Twitter's Chief Media Scientist from 2013 to 2017.

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Home / Blog

The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?

May 28, 2020

Table of Contents

A Brief History of Social Media ○ The Launch of Social Sites

Social Media: End Users and Businesses

How marketing pros utilize social media.

What’s Next For Social Media

The evolution of social media has been fueled by the human impulse to communicate and by advances in digital technology. It is a story about establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale.

According to Merriam-Webster , social media is defined 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).” The 2019 Pew Research Center report on social media use in the United States showed that 72% of American adults use some form of social media. In 2005, the year after Facebook went live, that number was 5%.

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What follows is an examination of the origins of social media, its relatively rapid growth as a sociological and commercial force, and the change it has brought to the marketing world.

A Brief History of Social Media

In less than a generation, social media has evolved from direct electronic information exchange, to virtual gathering place, to retail platform, to vital 21st-century marketing tool.

How did it begin? How has social media affected the lives of billions of people? How have businesses adapted to the digital consumer lifestyle? How do marketing professionals use social media? It’s all part of the story of social media’s ongoing evolution.

Pre-internet Roots

In a sense, social media began on May 24, 1844, with a series of electronic dots and dashes tapped out by hand on a telegraph machine.

The first electronic message from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., proved Samuel Morse understood the historic ramifications of his scientific achievement: “What hath God wrought?” he wrote.

A recent article in The Washington Post , “ Before Twitter and Facebook, There Was Morse Code: Remembering Social Media’s True Inventor ,” details the history and relevance of Morse code, complete with early versions of today’s “OMG” and “LOL.”

While the roots of digital communication run deep, most contemporary accounts of the modern origins of today’s internet and social media point to the emergence in 1969 of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network — the ARPANET.

This early digital network, created by the United States Department of Defense, allowed scientists at four interconnected universities to share software, hardware, and other data.

In 1987, the direct precursor to today’s internet came into being when the National Science Foundation launched a more robust, nationwide digital network known as the NSFNET . A decade later, in 1997, the first true social media platform was launched.

The Launch of Social Sites

In the 1980s and ’90s, according to “ The History of Social Networking ” on the technology news site Digital Trends, the internet’s growth enabled the introduction of online communication services such as CompuServe, America Online, and Prodigy. They introduced users to digital communication through email, bulletin board messaging, and real-time online chatting.

This gave rise to the earliest social media networks, beginning with the short-lived Six Degrees profile uploading service in 1997.

This service was followed in 2001 by Friendster. These rudimentary platforms attracted millions of users and enabled email address registration and basic online networking.

Weblogs, or blogs, another early form of digital social communication, began to gain popularity with the 1999 launch of the LiveJournal publishing site. This coincided with the launch of the Blogger publishing platform by the tech company Pyra Labs, which was purchased by Google in 2003 .

In 2002, LinkedIn was founded as a networking site for career-minded professionals. By 2020, it had grown to more than 675 million users worldwide. It remains the social media site of choice for job seekers as well as human resources managers searching for qualified candidates.

Two other major forays into social media collapsed after a burst of initial success. In 2003, Myspace launched. By 2006, it was the most visited website on the planet, spurred by users’ ability to share new music directly on their profile pages.

By 2008, it was eclipsed by Facebook. In 2011, Myspace was purchased by musician Justin Timberlake for $35 million, but it has since become a social media afterthought .

Google’s attempt to elbow its way into the social media landscape, Google+ , launched in 2012. A rocky existence came to an end in 2018, after the private information of nearly 500,000 Google+ users was compromised by a data security breach.

Modern Social Media Outlets

Today’s social media landscape is populated by a suite of services that jockey for the attention of more than 5 billion mobile device users worldwide . Here is an overview of the most prominent social media networks of 2020:

Launched in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, it has nearly 1.7 billion users — including 69% of U.S. adults, according to Pew Research .

HubSpot: Facebook Marketing

Launched in 2005 by Massachusetts 20-somethings Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian as a news-sharing platform, its 300 million users have transformed Reddit into a combination news aggregation/social commentary site. Its popularity is based on the ability to “up-vote” and “down-vote” user posts.

Social Media Examiner: How to Market on Reddit: A Guide for Businesses

Founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and others as a microblogging site, by 2020, 22% of U.S. adults were Twitter users, according to Pew Research .

Hootsuite: Twitter Marketing: The Complete Guide for Business

Founded in 2010 by Stanford graduate Kevin Systrom as a photo-sharing site and purchased by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has more than 1 billion users worldwide.

HubSpot: Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide

Founded in 2010 by iPhone app developer Ben Silbermann as a visual “pin board,” Pinterest became a publicly traded company in 2019 and has more than 335 million active monthly users.

Sprout Social: Your 5-Step Pinterest Marketing Guide

Founded in 2011 by a trio of Stanford students — Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy — this video-sharing service introduced the concept of “stories,” or serialized short videos, and “filters,” run for informative digital effects, often based on location.

Hootsuite: Snapchat for Business

Founded in 2016 by Chinese tech company ByteDance, this short-form video-sharing site was merged with the U.S.-based mobile app Musical.ly in 2018 and became popular with American teens and young adults. As of early 2020, it had more than 800 million users worldwide.

Business Insider: TikTok Marketing Trends & Predictions for 2020

What began as a desktop or laptop experience shifted to mobile phones and tablets as cellular service expanded; the capabilities of cellular phones expanded, turning them into “smartphones”; and high-speed wireless internet became more readily available in homes, businesses, and public spaces.

With the advent of social media apps that could run on smartphones, end users could take their communities with them wherever they went.

Businesses took advantage of this new consumer mobility by serving their customers new, simpler methods of interacting — and new ways of buying goods and services.

The End-User Experience

At first, social media existed to help end users connect digitally with friends, colleagues, family members, and like-minded individuals they might never have met in person. Desktop access to bulletin board services such as CompuServe and Prodigy made it easier to grow free online communities without ever leaving the house.

The invention of the smartphone liberated social media from the desktop and laptop computer. Apple’s first iPhone, launched by Steve Jobs in 2007, helped shift the focus of online community building to mobile. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media services thrived in the mobile app environment.

Technological improvements — specifically, powerful in-phone cameras — shifted the focus of mobile apps to video and images. In addition to written messages, end users could now broadcast in real time.

Instagram, in particular, became the app of choice for social media users interested in travel, entertainment, fashion, and other visually oriented topics.

The Business Experience

As social media companies grew their user bases into the hundreds of millions, the business applications of Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms began to take shape. Social media companies had access to some of the richest trackable user data ever conceived.

A recent article on IAS Insider, “ The Evolution of Social Media Advertising ,” sums it up: “Users don’t just log in and browse, they tell the platforms their name, and where they live, what they like and who they know, painting the most vivid picture currently possible for marketers looking to target specific consumers.”

Facebook began to place ads on its platform as early as 2006. Twitter enabled ads in 2010. LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok all have attempted to monetize their services through various forms of sponsored advertising.

In addition to placing ads on social media platforms, companies discovered the potential utility of cultivating an active, engaged social media presence. Whereas social media advertising must be paid for, the act of creating and sharing informative or entertaining content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms is an attempt by brands to grow an audience organically, in other words, without paying for it directly.

According to HubSpot’s “ Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate Guide ,” companies use organic social media marketing to:

Increase brand awareness
Generate leads and increase conversions
Develop and nurture relationships with customers
Learn from competitors

The combination of advertising, or paid social media marketing, and organic social media outreach evolved into the digital marketing specialty known as social media marketing.

Sprout Social: How to Build Your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2020
Forbes: How Social Media Can Move Your Business Forward
Social Media Examiner: The Guide for Social Media Marketing for Businesses

As the ability to reach consumers expanded thanks to social media, marketing professionals quickly adapted. Social media’s evolution provided measurement tools that gave marketing professionals unprecedented access to valuable, actionable data about consumers’ demographics, buying habits, and more.

With marketers no longer limited to traditional forms of media — TV, radio, print, mail, billboards, magazines, etc. — the social media marketing industry was born.

increases in digital advertising in the US

Taking Advantage of Social Media’s Popularity

The most efficient way to take advantage of social media’s popularity is to leverage existing audiences. To that end, digital marketers engage social media “influencers” to share messaging and product offers with their followers.

According to an article on Sprout Social’s website, “ What Is Influencer Marketing: How to Develop Your Strategy ,” influencer marketing is defined as “a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers — individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche.”

These social media influencers spend time building trust with their audiences. With more than 3.2 billion social media users worldwide, finding influencers whose audiences fall into the company’s niche of consumers helps cut through the noise by targeting specific potential buyers.

While influencers provide companies a layer of built-in consumer trust, social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn provide in-depth analytics that allow digital marketers to target specific demographic groups with ads. This can be useful for building brand awareness among potential long-term customers, as well as for generating leads for specific products or services.

Influencer Marketing Hub: What is an Influencer?
Social Media Today: 4 Influencer Marketing Trends That Will Dominate in 2020
Influencer Marketing Hub: The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report

The Importance of Engagement and Integration

Social media engagement consists of the various ways users respond to a post. This can include comments, follows, shares (retweets on Twitter), and clicks on a shared link. All of these actions are measurable thanks to analytics provided by the social media platforms (Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Page Analytics, etc.).

Each of these engagements presents an opportunity for marketers to influence a customer or group of customers. For example, a company that monitors its Twitter feed in real time — either through an automated service or in person — is positioned to respond quickly to a customer’s request or comment.

In addition, data that reveals users’ habits over time can be integrated into a long-term social media strategy. For example, Facebook Insights shows when users are most active on the platform. This information can be used to determine when is the best time to post new content, giving it a better chance to be seen.

Another way marketers use social media is to monitor cultural trends and, if applicable, incorporate brand-specific concepts that build on those trends to entice customers to engage with the company’s content.

Personifying the Company

Another Sprout Social article, “ 5 Actionable Strategies for Social Media Branding ,” provides guidelines for how social media can be used to develop a company’s public “voice.” The bottom line when it comes to social media branding is authenticity. Today’s savvy digital consumers expect a robust and “real” personality from brands. Sprout Social’s tactical advice includes:

Develop and use consistent visual branding across all social media platforms
Use a tone that reflects the brand’s public persona
Cater to marketing personas based on social media metrics

Companies that fail to develop a consistent, engaging social media presence are not taking full advantage of the marketing tools available in today’s competitive marketplace.

The Future of Social Media

What happens next in social media almost certainly will be shaped by the evolving business model, as well as by advances in storytelling technology. How will mega platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and others make money? How will end users adapt? How will businesses spread their messages and use social media to build audiences? The answers to these questions will determine the next stage of social media’s evolution.

Premium Social Media Services

What does the future hold for social media? According to a recent article in Entrepreneur , “ 11 Ways Social Media Will Evolve in the Future ,” consumers will gravitate toward services that allow them to:

Personalize content at a granular level
Reduce the amount of vitriol and conflict commonly found on public social media feeds
Increase focus on protecting privacy
Take greater advantage of the utility of mobile devices
Focus more on community building

This could mean a movement toward paid subscription services on social media, according to Entrepreneur . The challenge for marketing professionals will be to meet the shifting demands of social media users while maintaining an authentic brand voice.

Social Media Video

Another growing point of emphasis for social media in the future, according to Entrepreneur , will be video content. Video marketing already has a substantial presence in the U.S., where it is a $135 billion industry in 2020 , according to Social Media Today.

According to HubSpot’s “ The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2020 ,” video became the No. 1 form of media used in content marketing in 2019, surpassing blogs and e-books for the first time. Video’s prominence as a marketing tool is expected to continue to grow, based on the latest information in Wyzowl’s “ The State of Video Marketing in 2020 [New Data] .”

This survey found that 88% of marketers received positive returns on investment through video. Perhaps most significantly, 59% of marketers who said they had not previously used video intended to do so in 2020 and beyond.

What’s Next for Social Media?

The future of social media is limited only by the imagination of its stakeholders. The brief history of the industry has proven that the rapid change — advances in technology, more-strident financial demands, shifting cultural dynamics — will transform the current social media landscape.

Will Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other major platforms go the way of Google+ and MySpace? Will the entrepreneurial heirs of Twitter creator Biz Stone and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg build on the success of their predecessors? Can social media maintain its relevance as technology evolves?

Human beings are social creatures. Commerce is driven by human interaction. These two facts will continue to shape the evolution of social media into the next decade and beyond.

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History Cooperative

The Complete History of Social Media: A Timeline of the Invention of Online Networking

Social media has become an integral part of all of our lives. We use it to connect with friends and family, to catch up on current events, and, perhaps most importantly, to entertain ourselves. This is why just under 70 percent of Americans, and more than 2.6 billion active users globally, use social networking sites. However, this wasn’t always the case.

Back in just 2005, social media penetration in the U.S. was just 5 percent, and most of the rest of the internet didn’t even know what it was. All of this means that the history of social media is a brief yet tumultuous one, and studying it can help us better understand just how much, and how quickly, the world around us is changing.

We’ll answer the question of when did social media start in a second, but before we do, we need to define what is social media?

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What is social media.

Before going too far into the history of social media, it’s important we first discuss exactly what we mean by social media. For most of us, we can spot social media when we see it, but we should work to be a bit more specific. A quick Google search for “social media definition” will reveal countless results, but they will all reflect the following definition in one way or another:

Social media is understood as the different forms of online communication used by people to create networks, communities, and collectives to share information, ideas, messages, and other content, such as videos.

Two things stand out from this definition:

Social media must include online communication, meaning the history of social media cannot begin before the invention and widespread adoption of the internet; and
Social media depends on user-generated content. This is why typical websites and blogs do not get included in the world of social media. Only certain people can post to these sites, and there are significant restrictions on the types of content that get uploaded.

Using this definition, we can understand social media platforms to be a wide range of things, such as messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber, profile-based platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn, video portals such as YouTube , and also email clients such as G-mail. However, there are many other social networking sites out there, especially once you start looking at how people use social media platforms around the world.

READ MORE: Who Invented Facebook? The Birth of a Social Media Revolution

History of Social Media

Many people like to link the history of social media to the growth in communications technology that has been occurring since the end of the 19th century. A common starting point is Samuel Morse’s first telegraph , which he sent in 1844 between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

However, going off our definition from before, this type of communication does not qualify as social media. First, it did not take place “online,” and second, telegrams do not contribute to any larger community or collective. Instead, they are used to send individual messages between two people. So, while it’s interesting to think of social media history as being part of a much larger continuum, the real history of social media starts in the 1970s with the emergence of the internet.

The Rapid Growth of the Internet

The internet has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s when various private and public organizations were working to try and find ways to get computers to communicate with one another. In a sense, this can be considered as the beginning of social media. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s, and really the 1990s, that personal computers became more normal, which set the stage for the emergence of social media.

Additionally, the emergence of blogging and the bulletin board system in the 1990s helped usher in the age of online social networking sites. The idea that an average person could log on to the internet and write about what they were thinking, feeling, and doing, and that these posts could be read by anyone at any time , and responded to, helped people begin to understand the full significance of the internet.

Social Media History

Many people like to link the history of social media to the growth in communications technology that has been occurring since the end of the 19th century. A common starting point is Samuel Morse’s first telegraph, which he sent in 1844 between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

However, going off our definition from before, this type of communication does not qualify as social media history. First, it did not take place “online,” and second, telegrams do not contribute to any larger community or collective. Instead, they are used to send individual messages between two people. So, while it’s interesting to think of social media as being part of a much larger continuum, the real history of social media starts in the 1970s with the emergence of the internet.

The internet has its roots in the 1960s and 1970s when various private and public organizations were working to try and find ways to get computers to communicate with one another. In a sense, this can be considered as the beginning of online social media. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s, and really the 1990s, that personal computers became more normal, which set the stage for the emergence of social media.

Additionally, the emergence of blogging in the 1990s helped usher in the age of social media. The idea that an average person could log on to the internet and write about what they were thinking, feeling, doing, and their personal news, and that these posts could be read by anyone at any time, and responded to, helped people begin to understand the full significance of the internet.

Old Social Media Sites

Using our definition of social media above, the first two social media platforms were Six Degrees and Friendster, both of which are no longer around, despite playing an influential role in starting what has become a social media revolution.

Six Degrees

The website credited as being the “first online social media” site is Six Degrees. It’s named after the “six degrees of separation” theory, which states that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by no more than six degrees of separation. This is often called the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” theory, although Kevin Bacon himself is irrelevant to the phenomenon.

The reason Six Degrees is considered to be the first of the social networks is because it allowed people to sign up with their email address, make individual profiles, and add friends to their personal network. It was officially launched in 1997, and it lasted until about 2001. It’s number of users peaked at around 3.5 million. It was bought out by YouthStream Media Networks in 1999 for $125 million, but it shut down just one year later.

A few years later, in 2002, the site Friendster emerged to compete with Six Degrees. Like Six Degrees, it allowed users to sign up with their email address, make friends, and save them as part of a personal network. People could also share videos, photos, and messages with other users, and they were also able to leave comments on other people’s profiles, so long as they were part of each other’s personal network.

A few months after its launch, Friendster had over 3 million users, and this number continued to grow, eventually reaching over one hundred million.

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In 2011, Friendster was rebranded as a social gaming site that was focused mainly on the gaming community. This helped it stay relevant alongside competiting sites like Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook, but in the end, Friendster was doomed to fail. In 2015, it suspended all of its services, and on Jan. 1, 2019, it ceased all operations and officially closed its doors.

When Did LinkedIn Start?

LinkedIn was one of the first social media sites in history. It was founded on December 28, 2002 by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly, and Jean-Luc Valliant. Initially, it was a site focused on professional networking, allowing people to connect with business and school contacts, as well as companies. Today, this is still the primary purpose of LinkedIn. It has stayed true to that purpose to this day. Currently, LinkedIn has more than 575 million registered users, and it’s ranked number 285 on the Alexa Ranking for most-visited sites.

When Was MySpace Created?

Of the original batch of social networking sites, MySpace was perhaps the most popular and influential. Launched on August 1, 2003, MySpace quickly became the largest social media site in the world, connecting millions of active users all over the world. It started as a file storage platform, but it quickly transitioned to an online social network, which contributed to its meteoric rise in popularity.

By 2005, it was clear to the world that MySpace was here to stay, so some larger companies began to show interest in acquiring it. This resulted in the sale of MySpace to News Corp., the U.K-based media conglomerate run by Rupert Murdoch, for $580 million. Shortly thereafter, in 2006, MySpace surpassed Google as the top visited website in world.

The Decline of MySpace

After the sale, MySpace continued to grow, and by 2009 it was generating around $800 million in revenue, making it one of the more profitable social networking sites out there. However, as Facebook began to expand beyond its initial audience of just college students, MySpace began to decline, and Facebook replaced it as the top visited site in 2008.

Another reason MySpace began to decline was its use of on-site ads to generate revenue. Many argue that its deal with Google 2010, which consisted of a $900 million, three-year advertising agreement, overloaded the site with ads and made it difficult to use. It’s popularity was soon eclipsed by other sites like YouTube and Facebook that offered a more ad-free environment.

However, MySpace, despite its decline, continues to operate to this day. In 2016, it was bought out by Time Inc., and in 2018 it was bought again by the Meredith Corporation. Currently, it’s still ranked 4,153 on the Alexa ranking of most visited sites in the world.

When Was Facebook Founded?

Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollom, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Facebook started as a social media site exclusive to Harvard students, although it quickly spread to the rest of the Ivy League, as well as Stanford and MIT. However, after 2006, Facebook was available to anyone claiming to be above the age of 13, regardless of whether or not they had an affiliation with a university.

After its launch and subsequent expansion, Facebook grew quickly, surpassing MySpace in 2008 as the most visited site in the world. Today, it ranks #3 on the Alexa traffic rankings, behind only Google and YouTube.

Facebook went public in 2012 and it received a valuation of $104 billion, making it one of the highest IPO valuation’s of all time. It currently generates over $40 billion a year in revenue, and it is considered as one of the most important tech companies in the entire world. Facebook has also acquired other sites like Giphy, instagram and Whatsapp in a bid to propagate its reach.

Currently, Facebook has just over 2.6 billion active users, a number that has grown consistently since its launch. This amounts to just under 30 percent of the entire global population. Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world.

When Did Twitter Start?

Twitter was created on March 21, 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams. It distinguished itself by limiting users to only 140 characters, a policy it held onto until 2017, when it doubled the character limits in all languages except Chinese, Japanese , and Korean. Twitter went public in 2013 and was valued at $14.2 billion. Today, it has around 335 million monthly active users.

READ MORE: Who Invented Twitter? The Origins of a Revolutionary Social Media Platform

In 2009 China launched a social media platform called Weibo. A Facebook and Twitter hybrid that has grown to be one of the largest social media sites with over 400 million active users.

When Did Instagram Start?

Instagram was launched on October 6, 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It separated itself from the becoming a smartphone -only app focusing exclusively on photos and video sharing, and by only allowing photos to be framed in a square (a restriction which was lifted in 2015). ‘

Instagram grew quickly after its launch, surpassing one million registered users in just two months. Currently, it has 1 billion active users, which makes it the sixth most popular social media platform in the world. In 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock.

When did Snapchat Start?

Snapchat was launched by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown in September 2011. Its distinguishing feature was that it allowed users to send photos to one another that would disappear shortly after being opened.

Today, in addition to this service, Snapchat also allows people to chat with one another as well as share a “24-hour story,” which gives users the chance to post photos and videos and save them for one full day. Currently, it has around 186 million active users, although it is particularly popular among young people, leading many people to believe Snapchat’s influence will grow in the coming years.

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Social media today.

Social media history is relatively short in terms of time, and while there’s no doubt about it’s positives and negatives (just ask Dean McCrae ), this doesn’t make it any less exciting or influential. Today, social media is an integral part of how people connect with friends and family. Overall, there are some 2.62 billion social media users around the world, and this number is expected to grow to over 4 billion by 2025.

In general, today’s market is dominated by a handful of companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagam, but their pursuit of new users in an increasingly competitive market has ensured they continue to innovate their offerings. When you combine these innovations with the emergence of professional-quality online social media tools such as Instasize , the type and professionalism of posts on social media have changed dramatically since Facebook first entered the market.

If we can learn anything from the history of social media, it’s that this will continue to change. New companies will emerge, and, as people’s preferences change, old ones will die or merge into something else, rewriting the history of social media as they do.

The History of Marketing

How to Cite this Article

There are three different ways you can cite this article.

1. To cite this article in an academic-style article or paper , use:

<a href=" https://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/ ">The Complete History of Social Media: A Timeline of the Invention of Online Networking</a>

46 thoughts on “The Complete History of Social Media: A Timeline of the Invention of Online Networking”

Y’all know your title page has three Os, right? History Coooperative? You might want to fix that. Thanks for the info though 🙂

Hey, do you have any idea who wrote this article?

It says that it was written by Benjamin Hale

Where does it say that? All I see is “by Keith”.

I am the G.O.A.T

You modern day people think your so good,

boiiiii ill cross u over

u guys are both trash

When and how did social media start becoming a controversial problem to mankind

Nah Bruv I Don’t want to shank yee

You forgot to mention friendster ?

This article is poorly written lol..

So many sentence run-ons, spelling mistakes, etc. Phrasing is awkward.

Grammar nazi?

That´s all wrong and that´s claus 🙂

It’s Claus… SANTA CLAUS!!!

what was one of the first social media sites invented in 1997?

keyboard warriorrrsss for☻

Thank you for sharing the History of Social Networking I never knew this before until you come up with this article

…This is the most stupid reply I have read in my life

great information !!

yes am social ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ but really this helped for a school project

“Although it is impossible to know what the future of social media holds, it is clear that it will continue.”

I can tell you what will be the future of social media: DLT technologies, among which the Blockchain. A decentralised network, that :

– Can not be controlled or arbitrary censored by any central authority (i.e. politically correct thought police and dictators). – Will put back the user at the center of the equation (the so called UX that should be called PX from Product Experiment, because users of Facebook et al are clearly the “products”) – Will allow user to monetise his/her personal data him/herself thus taking back control over said data – Will pay users when they sponsor new members and publish useful contents – Will allow users to trade with their friends thanks to token / crypto-currencies

Voilà for the future of social media

A frenchy who is about to launch that kind of next-gen social media for We the People

u need to write good things man this is not all of the things

you cant espect him to know every thing in the world give him a break

Don’t make them change it

Thanks for the information!

Your funny Sharon

This is awesome stuff

Nice Article! Social Media is widely used all over the world and It ruining the entire world. It’s really appreciable for reading the social media history.

I used it in an essay in my ELA class! It was extremly useful!!!

what Keelin your grounded

Whoms’t’d’ve wrote this article? Kieth? Kieth who? What validated this article?

Great Article! Keen to read more article like this.

The best way for a brand to grow nowadays is Social Media Marketing so I think it’s very much essential for brands to go for digital marketing which will increase their awareness and elevate its sales

when was this??????

what is ur last name keith.

When was this article written?

I was having a fight with my friend about when Facebook was invented and it turns out I’m right! Thanks 🙂

is that really something to fight about though

So they just going to forget BlackPlanet like that wasn’t big shit. Or is it because its a Black company that shit don’t count? Everybody was using it well 15.8 Million people, it was founded in 1999 but no mention of it at all. That’s odd

Great info thanks for the help

Without any doubt, Social Media is one of the most blessings in our technological life. But it has spoiled our life on the other hand. :/

I had a fun time reading this at school

That was informative and it was super helpful for my six pages english homework so thanks to the one who made this wesite

6 Example Essays on Social Media | Advantages, Effects, and Outlines

Got an essay assignment about the effects of social media we got you covered check out our examples and outlines below.

Social media has become one of our society's most prominent ways of communication and information sharing in a very short time. It has changed how we communicate and has given us a platform to express our views and opinions and connect with others. It keeps us informed about the world around us. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn have brought individuals from all over the world together, breaking down geographical borders and fostering a genuinely global community.

However, social media comes with its difficulties. With the rise of misinformation, cyberbullying, and privacy problems, it's critical to utilize these platforms properly and be aware of the risks. Students in the academic world are frequently assigned essays about the impact of social media on numerous elements of our lives, such as relationships, politics, and culture. These essays necessitate a thorough comprehension of the subject matter, critical thinking, and the ability to synthesize and convey information clearly and succinctly.

But where do you begin? It can be challenging to know where to start with so much information available. Jenni.ai comes in handy here. Jenni.ai is an AI application built exclusively for students to help them write essays more quickly and easily. Jenni.ai provides students with inspiration and assistance on how to approach their essays with its enormous database of sample essays on a variety of themes, including social media. Jenni.ai is the solution you've been looking for if you're experiencing writer's block or need assistance getting started.

So, whether you're a student looking to better your essay writing skills or want to remain up to date on the latest social media advancements, Jenni.ai is here to help. Jenni.ai is the ideal tool for helping you write your finest essay ever, thanks to its simple design, an extensive database of example essays, and cutting-edge AI technology. So, why delay? Sign up for a free trial of Jenni.ai today and begin exploring the worlds of social networking and essay writing!

Want to learn how to write an argumentative essay? Check out these inspiring examples!

We will provide various examples of social media essays so you may get a feel for the genre.

6 Examples of Social Media Essays

Here are 6 examples of Social Media Essays:

The Impact of Social Media on Relationships and Communication

Introduction:.

The way we share information and build relationships has evolved as a direct result of the prevalence of social media in our daily lives. The influence of social media on interpersonal connections and conversation is a hot topic. Although social media has many positive effects, such as bringing people together regardless of physical proximity and making communication quicker and more accessible, it also has a dark side that can affect interpersonal connections and dialogue.

Positive Effects:

Connecting People Across Distances

One of social media's most significant benefits is its ability to connect individuals across long distances. People can use social media platforms to interact and stay in touch with friends and family far away. People can now maintain intimate relationships with those they care about, even when physically separated.

Improved Communication Speed and Efficiency

Additionally, the proliferation of social media sites has accelerated and simplified communication. Thanks to instant messaging, users can have short, timely conversations rather than lengthy ones via email. Furthermore, social media facilitates group communication, such as with classmates or employees, by providing a unified forum for such activities.

Negative Effects:

Decreased Face-to-Face Communication

The decline in in-person interaction is one of social media's most pernicious consequences on interpersonal connections and dialogue. People's reliance on digital communication over in-person contact has increased along with the popularity of social media. Face-to-face interaction has suffered as a result, which has adverse effects on interpersonal relationships and the development of social skills.

Decreased Emotional Intimacy

Another adverse effect of social media on relationships and communication is decreased emotional intimacy. Digital communication lacks the nonverbal cues and facial expressions critical in building emotional connections with others. This can make it more difficult for people to develop close and meaningful relationships, leading to increased loneliness and isolation.

Increased Conflict and Miscommunication

Finally, social media can also lead to increased conflict and miscommunication. The anonymity and distance provided by digital communication can lead to misunderstandings and hurtful comments that might not have been made face-to-face. Additionally, social media can provide a platform for cyberbullying , which can have severe consequences for the victim's mental health and well-being.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the impact of social media on relationships and communication is a complex issue with both positive and negative effects. While social media platforms offer many benefits, such as connecting people across distances and enabling faster and more accessible communication, they also have a dark side that can negatively affect relationships and communication. It is up to individuals to use social media responsibly and to prioritize in-person communication in their relationships and interactions with others.

The Role of Social Media in the Spread of Misinformation and Fake News

Social media has revolutionized the way information is shared and disseminated. However, the ease and speed at which data can be spread on social media also make it a powerful tool for spreading misinformation and fake news. Misinformation and fake news can seriously affect public opinion, influence political decisions, and even cause harm to individuals and communities.

The Pervasiveness of Misinformation and Fake News on Social Media

Misinformation and fake news are prevalent on social media platforms, where they can spread quickly and reach a large audience. This is partly due to the way social media algorithms work, which prioritizes content likely to generate engagement, such as sensational or controversial stories. As a result, false information can spread rapidly and be widely shared before it is fact-checked or debunked.

The Influence of Social Media on Public Opinion

Social media can significantly impact public opinion, as people are likelier to believe the information they see shared by their friends and followers. This can lead to a self-reinforcing cycle, where misinformation and fake news are spread and reinforced, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

The Challenge of Correcting Misinformation and Fake News

Correcting misinformation and fake news on social media can be a challenging task. This is partly due to the speed at which false information can spread and the difficulty of reaching the same audience exposed to the wrong information in the first place. Additionally, some individuals may be resistant to accepting correction, primarily if the incorrect information supports their beliefs or biases.

In conclusion, the function of social media in disseminating misinformation and fake news is complex and urgent. While social media has revolutionized the sharing of information, it has also made it simpler for false information to propagate and be widely believed. Individuals must be accountable for the information they share and consume, and social media firms must take measures to prevent the spread of disinformation and fake news on their platforms.

The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health and Well-Being

Social media has become an integral part of modern life, with billions of people around the world using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to stay connected with others and access information. However, while social media has many benefits, it can also negatively affect mental health and well-being.

Comparison and Low Self-Esteem

One of the key ways that social media can affect mental health is by promoting feelings of comparison and low self-esteem. People often present a curated version of their lives on social media, highlighting their successes and hiding their struggles. This can lead others to compare themselves unfavorably, leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Another way that social media can negatively impact mental health is through cyberbullying and online harassment. Social media provides a platform for anonymous individuals to harass and abuse others, leading to feelings of anxiety, fear, and depression.

Social Isolation

Despite its name, social media can also contribute to feelings of isolation. At the same time, people may have many online friends but need more meaningful in-person connections and support. This can lead to feelings of loneliness and depression.

Addiction and Overuse

Finally, social media can be addictive, leading to overuse and negatively impacting mental health and well-being. People may spend hours each day scrolling through their feeds, neglecting other important areas of their lives, such as work, family, and self-care.

In sum, social media has positive and negative consequences on one's psychological and emotional well-being. Realizing this, and taking measures like reducing one's social media use, reaching out to loved ones for help, and prioritizing one's well-being, are crucial. In addition, it's vital that social media giants take ownership of their platforms and actively encourage excellent mental health and well-being.

The Use of Social Media in Political Activism and Social Movements

Social media has recently become increasingly crucial in political action and social movements. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have given people new ways to express themselves, organize protests, and raise awareness about social and political issues.

Raising Awareness and Mobilizing Action

One of the most important uses of social media in political activity and social movements has been to raise awareness about important issues and mobilize action. Hashtags such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, for example, have brought attention to sexual harassment and racial injustice, respectively. Similarly, social media has been used to organize protests and other political actions, allowing people to band together and express themselves on a bigger scale.

Connecting with like-minded individuals

A second method in that social media has been utilized in political activity and social movements is to unite like-minded individuals. Through social media, individuals can join online groups, share knowledge and resources, and work with others to accomplish shared objectives. This has been especially significant for geographically scattered individuals or those without access to traditional means of political organizing.

Challenges and Limitations

As a vehicle for political action and social movements, social media has faced many obstacles and restrictions despite its many advantages. For instance, the propagation of misinformation and fake news on social media can impede attempts to disseminate accurate and reliable information. In addition, social media corporations have been condemned for censorship and insufficient protection of user rights.

In conclusion, social media has emerged as a potent instrument for political activism and social movements, giving voice to previously unheard communities and galvanizing support for change. Social media presents many opportunities for communication and collaboration. Still, users and institutions must be conscious of the risks and limitations of these tools to promote their responsible and productive usage.

The Potential Privacy Concerns Raised by Social Media Use and Data Collection Practices

With billions of users each day on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, social media has ingrained itself into every aspect of our lives. While these platforms offer a straightforward method to communicate with others and exchange information, they also raise significant concerns over data collecting and privacy. This article will examine the possible privacy issues posed by social media use and data-gathering techniques.

Data Collection and Sharing

The gathering and sharing of personal data are significant privacy issues brought up by social media use. Social networking sites gather user data, including details about their relationships, hobbies, and routines. This information is made available to third-party businesses for various uses, such as marketing and advertising. This can lead to serious concerns about who has access to and uses our personal information.

Lack of Control Over Personal Information

The absence of user control over personal information is a significant privacy issue brought up by social media usage. Social media makes it challenging to limit who has access to and how data is utilized once it has been posted. Sensitive information may end up being extensively disseminated and may be used maliciously as a result.

Personalized Marketing

Social media companies utilize the information they gather about users to target them with adverts relevant to their interests and usage patterns. Although this could be useful, it might also cause consumers to worry about their privacy since they might feel that their personal information is being used without their permission. Furthermore, there are issues with the integrity of the data being used to target users and the possibility of prejudice based on individual traits.

Government Surveillance

Using social media might spark worries about government surveillance. There are significant concerns regarding privacy and free expression when governments in some nations utilize social media platforms to follow and monitor residents.

In conclusion, social media use raises significant concerns regarding data collecting and privacy. While these platforms make it easy to interact with people and exchange information, they also gather a lot of personal information, which raises questions about who may access it and how it will be used. Users should be aware of these privacy issues and take precautions to safeguard their personal information, such as exercising caution when choosing what details to disclose on social media and keeping their information sharing with other firms to a minimum.

The Ethical and Privacy Concerns Surrounding Social Media Use And Data Collection

Our use of social media to communicate with loved ones, acquire information, and even conduct business has become a crucial part of our everyday lives. The extensive use of social media does, however, raise some ethical and privacy issues that must be resolved. The influence of social media use and data collecting on user rights, the accountability of social media businesses, and the need for improved regulation are all topics that will be covered in this article.

Effect on Individual Privacy:

Social networking sites gather tons of personal data from their users, including delicate information like search history, location data, and even health data. Each user's detailed profile may be created with this data and sold to advertising or used for other reasons. Concerns regarding the privacy of personal information might arise because social media businesses can use this data to target users with customized adverts.

Additionally, individuals might need to know how much their personal information is being gathered and exploited. Data breaches or the unauthorized sharing of personal information with other parties may result in instances where sensitive information is exposed. Users should be aware of the privacy rules of social media firms and take precautions to secure their data.

Responsibility of Social Media Companies:

Social media firms should ensure that they responsibly and ethically gather and use user information. This entails establishing strong security measures to safeguard sensitive information and ensuring users are informed of what information is being collected and how it is used.

Many social media businesses, nevertheless, have come under fire for not upholding these obligations. For instance, the Cambridge Analytica incident highlighted how Facebook users' personal information was exploited for political objectives without their knowledge. This demonstrates the necessity of social media corporations being held responsible for their deeds and ensuring that they are safeguarding the security and privacy of their users.

Better Regulation Is Needed

There is a need for tighter regulation in this field, given the effect, social media has on individual privacy as well as the obligations of social media firms. The creation of laws and regulations that ensure social media companies are gathering and using user information ethically and responsibly, as well as making sure users are aware of their rights and have the ability to control the information that is being collected about them, are all part of this.

Additionally, legislation should ensure that social media businesses are held responsible for their behavior, for example, by levying fines for data breaches or the unauthorized use of personal data. This will provide social media businesses with a significant incentive to prioritize their users' privacy and security and ensure they are upholding their obligations.

In conclusion, social media has fundamentally changed how we engage and communicate with one another, but this increased convenience also raises several ethical and privacy issues. Essential concerns that need to be addressed include the effect of social media on individual privacy, the accountability of social media businesses, and the requirement for greater regulation to safeguard user rights. We can make everyone's online experience safer and more secure by looking more closely at these issues.

In conclusion, social media is a complex and multifaceted topic that has recently captured the world's attention. With its ever-growing influence on our lives, it's no surprise that it has become a popular subject for students to explore in their writing. Whether you are writing an argumentative essay on the impact of social media on privacy, a persuasive essay on the role of social media in politics, or a descriptive essay on the changes social media has brought to the way we communicate, there are countless angles to approach this subject.

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Social Sense & Content Passion

Be a Content Crusader. Break free from the Content Machine. Create meaningful content rooted in people's needs.

Jul 07 2009

TED Talks – Clay Shirky: How social media can make history

[ted id=”575″]

Clay Shirky talks about how social networks like Twitter, Facebook are changing the landscape of news production and reporting, and how this change in top-down control of news concurrently changes politcal dynamics.

About Timi Stoop-Alcala

I’m very passionate about content, because I’m passionate about people. Content is just another means to solve problems and elevate people to greater heights. This is what I want my website / blog, and social networks to do for people like you and me. I don’t have all the answers, but I would like to share everything I have and will learn in this quest.

July 31, 2009 at 1:11 PM

May be you should go into politics, Timi.. I mean it really. But make sure you join the good force.. 🙂

Though I have to say, what this guy is talking about, is also a bit old cheese, isnt it? Sounds a like what Yochal Benkler and others are talking about for decades. Sounds like the readings a teacher of mine gave me at university… (again 10 years ago.. fuck I feel old saying this but I even found two white hhairs in my beard this morning!)

July 31, 2009 at 1:47 PM

this cyber-ninja will always be on the side of good, niels ;-p

you know, a lot of the stuff we hear now are not really new. they are rooted in older observations of the world and technology, of people and our history. i don’t think that’s not a bad thing. sometimes we do need the same questions to be heard and the same issues to be discussed simply because they are stil relevant. i think we need people who feel inclined to continue these talks and go on posing the same old questions of the world. lawrence lessig mentioned in one of his presentations that he’s been talking about the creative commons for years and yet significant battles still need to be won in this area. therefore, the need to continue the discourse. of course action is needed otherwise we are all just engaging in intellectual masturbation, innit? ;-p

i remember lectures / discussions from 15 years ago that still resonate true today. Either they’re still important or the world hasn’t changed much to merit new questions. i do believe thogh that it’s not just about providing a different answer, but we also need to start asking new questions in our field.

Contact me to kick things off. Time to plot the downfall of the Content Machine.

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How Harmful Is Social Media?

By Gideon Lewis-Kraus

In April, the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published an essay in The Atlantic in which he sought to explain, as the piece’s title had it, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.” Anyone familiar with Haidt’s work in the past half decade could have anticipated his answer: social media. Although Haidt concedes that political polarization and factional enmity long predate the rise of the platforms, and that there are plenty of other factors involved, he believes that the tools of virality—Facebook’s Like and Share buttons, Twitter’s Retweet function—have algorithmically and irrevocably corroded public life. He has determined that a great historical discontinuity can be dated with some precision to the period between 2010 and 2014, when these features became widely available on phones.

“What changed in the 2010s?” Haidt asks, reminding his audience that a former Twitter developer had once compared the Retweet button to the provision of a four-year-old with a loaded weapon. “A mean tweet doesn’t kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one’s own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It’s more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities. Even so, from 2009 to 2012, Facebook and Twitter passed out roughly a billion dart guns globally. We’ve been shooting one another ever since.” While the right has thrived on conspiracy-mongering and misinformation, the left has turned punitive: “When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And, unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country.” Haidt’s prevailing metaphor of thoroughgoing fragmentation is the story of the Tower of Babel: the rise of social media has “unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together.”

These are, needless to say, common concerns. Chief among Haidt’s worries is that use of social media has left us particularly vulnerable to confirmation bias, or the propensity to fix upon evidence that shores up our prior beliefs. Haidt acknowledges that the extant literature on social media’s effects is large and complex, and that there is something in it for everyone. On January 6, 2021, he was on the phone with Chris Bail, a sociologist at Duke and the author of the recent book “ Breaking the Social Media Prism ,” when Bail urged him to turn on the television. Two weeks later, Haidt wrote to Bail, expressing his frustration at the way Facebook officials consistently cited the same handful of studies in their defense. He suggested that the two of them collaborate on a comprehensive literature review that they could share, as a Google Doc, with other researchers. (Haidt had experimented with such a model before.) Bail was cautious. He told me, “What I said to him was, ‘Well, you know, I’m not sure the research is going to bear out your version of the story,’ and he said, ‘Why don’t we see?’ ”

Bail emphasized that he is not a “platform-basher.” He added, “In my book, my main take is, Yes, the platforms play a role, but we are greatly exaggerating what it’s possible for them to do—how much they could change things no matter who’s at the helm at these companies—and we’re profoundly underestimating the human element, the motivation of users.” He found Haidt’s idea of a Google Doc appealing, in the way that it would produce a kind of living document that existed “somewhere between scholarship and public writing.” Haidt was eager for a forum to test his ideas. “I decided that if I was going to be writing about this—what changed in the universe, around 2014, when things got weird on campus and elsewhere—once again, I’d better be confident I’m right,” he said. “I can’t just go off my feelings and my readings of the biased literature. We all suffer from confirmation bias, and the only cure is other people who don’t share your own.”

Haidt and Bail, along with a research assistant, populated the document over the course of several weeks last year, and in November they invited about two dozen scholars to contribute. Haidt told me, of the difficulties of social-scientific methodology, “When you first approach a question, you don’t even know what it is. ‘Is social media destroying democracy, yes or no?’ That’s not a good question. You can’t answer that question. So what can you ask and answer?” As the document took on a life of its own, tractable rubrics emerged—Does social media make people angrier or more affectively polarized? Does it create political echo chambers? Does it increase the probability of violence? Does it enable foreign governments to increase political dysfunction in the United States and other democracies? Haidt continued, “It’s only after you break it up into lots of answerable questions that you see where the complexity lies.”

Haidt came away with the sense, on balance, that social media was in fact pretty bad. He was disappointed, but not surprised, that Facebook’s response to his article relied on the same three studies they’ve been reciting for years. “This is something you see with breakfast cereals,” he said, noting that a cereal company “might say, ‘Did you know we have twenty-five per cent more riboflavin than the leading brand?’ They’ll point to features where the evidence is in their favor, which distracts you from the over-all fact that your cereal tastes worse and is less healthy.”

After Haidt’s piece was published, the Google Doc—“Social Media and Political Dysfunction: A Collaborative Review”—was made available to the public . Comments piled up, and a new section was added, at the end, to include a miscellany of Twitter threads and Substack essays that appeared in response to Haidt’s interpretation of the evidence. Some colleagues and kibbitzers agreed with Haidt. But others, though they might have shared his basic intuition that something in our experience of social media was amiss, drew upon the same data set to reach less definitive conclusions, or even mildly contradictory ones. Even after the initial flurry of responses to Haidt’s article disappeared into social-media memory, the document, insofar as it captured the state of the social-media debate, remained a lively artifact.

Near the end of the collaborative project’s introduction, the authors warn, “We caution readers not to simply add up the number of studies on each side and declare one side the winner.” The document runs to more than a hundred and fifty pages, and for each question there are affirmative and dissenting studies, as well as some that indicate mixed results. According to one paper, “Political expressions on social media and the online forum were found to (a) reinforce the expressers’ partisan thought process and (b) harden their pre-existing political preferences,” but, according to another, which used data collected during the 2016 election, “Over the course of the campaign, we found media use and attitudes remained relatively stable. Our results also showed that Facebook news use was related to modest over-time spiral of depolarization. Furthermore, we found that people who use Facebook for news were more likely to view both pro- and counter-attitudinal news in each wave. Our results indicated that counter-attitudinal exposure increased over time, which resulted in depolarization.” If results like these seem incompatible, a perplexed reader is given recourse to a study that says, “Our findings indicate that political polarization on social media cannot be conceptualized as a unified phenomenon, as there are significant cross-platform differences.”

Interested in echo chambers? “Our results show that the aggregation of users in homophilic clusters dominate online interactions on Facebook and Twitter,” which seems convincing—except that, as another team has it, “We do not find evidence supporting a strong characterization of ‘echo chambers’ in which the majority of people’s sources of news are mutually exclusive and from opposite poles.” By the end of the file, the vaguely patronizing top-line recommendation against simple summation begins to make more sense. A document that originated as a bulwark against confirmation bias could, as it turned out, just as easily function as a kind of generative device to support anybody’s pet conviction. The only sane response, it seemed, was simply to throw one’s hands in the air.

When I spoke to some of the researchers whose work had been included, I found a combination of broad, visceral unease with the current situation—with the banefulness of harassment and trolling; with the opacity of the platforms; with, well, the widespread presentiment that of course social media is in many ways bad—and a contrastive sense that it might not be catastrophically bad in some of the specific ways that many of us have come to take for granted as true. This was not mere contrarianism, and there was no trace of gleeful mythbusting; the issue was important enough to get right. When I told Bail that the upshot seemed to me to be that exactly nothing was unambiguously clear, he suggested that there was at least some firm ground. He sounded a bit less apocalyptic than Haidt.

“A lot of the stories out there are just wrong,” he told me. “The political echo chamber has been massively overstated. Maybe it’s three to five per cent of people who are properly in an echo chamber.” Echo chambers, as hotboxes of confirmation bias, are counterproductive for democracy. But research indicates that most of us are actually exposed to a wider range of views on social media than we are in real life, where our social networks—in the original use of the term—are rarely heterogeneous. (Haidt told me that this was an issue on which the Google Doc changed his mind; he became convinced that echo chambers probably aren’t as widespread a problem as he’d once imagined.) And too much of a focus on our intuitions about social media’s echo-chamber effect could obscure the relevant counterfactual: a conservative might abandon Twitter only to watch more Fox News. “Stepping outside your echo chamber is supposed to make you moderate, but maybe it makes you more extreme,” Bail said. The research is inchoate and ongoing, and it’s difficult to say anything on the topic with absolute certainty. But this was, in part, Bail’s point: we ought to be less sure about the particular impacts of social media.

Bail went on, “The second story is foreign misinformation.” It’s not that misinformation doesn’t exist, or that it hasn’t had indirect effects, especially when it creates perverse incentives for the mainstream media to cover stories circulating online. Haidt also draws convincingly upon the work of Renée DiResta, the research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, to sketch out a potential future in which the work of shitposting has been outsourced to artificial intelligence, further polluting the informational environment. But, at least so far, very few Americans seem to suffer from consistent exposure to fake news—“probably less than two per cent of Twitter users, maybe fewer now, and for those who were it didn’t change their opinions,” Bail said. This was probably because the people likeliest to consume such spectacles were the sort of people primed to believe them in the first place. “In fact,” he said, “echo chambers might have done something to quarantine that misinformation.”

The final story that Bail wanted to discuss was the “proverbial rabbit hole, the path to algorithmic radicalization,” by which YouTube might serve a viewer increasingly extreme videos. There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that this does happen, at least on occasion, and such anecdotes are alarming to hear. But a new working paper led by Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, found that almost all extremist content is either consumed by subscribers to the relevant channels—a sign of actual demand rather than manipulation or preference falsification—or encountered via links from external sites. It’s easy to see why we might prefer if this were not the case: algorithmic radicalization is presumably a simpler problem to solve than the fact that there are people who deliberately seek out vile content. “These are the three stories—echo chambers, foreign influence campaigns, and radicalizing recommendation algorithms—but, when you look at the literature, they’ve all been overstated.” He thought that these findings were crucial for us to assimilate, if only to help us understand that our problems may lie beyond technocratic tinkering. He explained, “Part of my interest in getting this research out there is to demonstrate that everybody is waiting for an Elon Musk to ride in and save us with an algorithm”—or, presumably, the reverse—“and it’s just not going to happen.”

When I spoke with Nyhan, he told me much the same thing: “The most credible research is way out of line with the takes.” He noted, of extremist content and misinformation, that reliable research that “measures exposure to these things finds that the people consuming this content are small minorities who have extreme views already.” The problem with the bulk of the earlier research, Nyhan told me, is that it’s almost all correlational. “Many of these studies will find polarization on social media,” he said. “But that might just be the society we live in reflected on social media!” He hastened to add, “Not that this is untroubling, and none of this is to let these companies, which are exercising a lot of power with very little scrutiny, off the hook. But a lot of the criticisms of them are very poorly founded. . . . The expansion of Internet access coincides with fifteen other trends over time, and separating them is very difficult. The lack of good data is a huge problem insofar as it lets people project their own fears into this area.” He told me, “It’s hard to weigh in on the side of ‘We don’t know, the evidence is weak,’ because those points are always going to be drowned out in our discourse. But these arguments are systematically underprovided in the public domain.”

In his Atlantic article, Haidt leans on a working paper by two social scientists, Philipp Lorenz-Spreen and Lisa Oswald, who took on a comprehensive meta-analysis of about five hundred papers and concluded that “the large majority of reported associations between digital media use and trust appear to be detrimental for democracy.” Haidt writes, “The literature is complex—some studies show benefits, particularly in less developed democracies—but the review found that, on balance, social media amplifies political polarization; foments populism, especially right-wing populism; and is associated with the spread of misinformation.” Nyhan was less convinced that the meta-analysis supported such categorical verdicts, especially once you bracketed the kinds of correlational findings that might simply mirror social and political dynamics. He told me, “If you look at their summary of studies that allow for causal inferences—it’s very mixed.”

As for the studies Nyhan considered most methodologically sound, he pointed to a 2020 article called “The Welfare Effects of Social Media,” by Hunt Allcott, Luca Braghieri, Sarah Eichmeyer, and Matthew Gentzkow. For four weeks prior to the 2018 midterm elections, the authors randomly divided a group of volunteers into two cohorts—one that continued to use Facebook as usual, and another that was paid to deactivate their accounts for that period. They found that deactivation “(i) reduced online activity, while increasing offline activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends; (ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization; (iii) increased subjective well-being; and (iv) caused a large persistent reduction in post-experiment Facebook use.” But Gentzkow reminded me that his conclusions, including that Facebook may slightly increase polarization, had to be heavily qualified: “From other kinds of evidence, I think there’s reason to think social media is not the main driver of increasing polarization over the long haul in the United States.”

In the book “ Why We’re Polarized ,” for example, Ezra Klein invokes the work of such scholars as Lilliana Mason to argue that the roots of polarization might be found in, among other factors, the political realignment and nationalization that began in the sixties, and were then sacralized, on the right, by the rise of talk radio and cable news. These dynamics have served to flatten our political identities, weakening our ability or inclination to find compromise. Insofar as some forms of social media encourage the hardening of connections between our identities and a narrow set of opinions, we might increasingly self-select into mutually incomprehensible and hostile groups; Haidt plausibly suggests that these processes are accelerated by the coalescence of social-media tribes around figures of fearful online charisma. “Social media might be more of an amplifier of other things going on rather than a major driver independently,” Gentzkow argued. “I think it takes some gymnastics to tell a story where it’s all primarily driven by social media, especially when you’re looking at different countries, and across different groups.”

Another study, led by Nejla Asimovic and Joshua Tucker, replicated Gentzkow’s approach in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they found almost precisely the opposite results: the people who stayed on Facebook were, by the end of the study, more positively disposed to their historic out-groups. The authors’ interpretation was that ethnic groups have so little contact in Bosnia that, for some people, social media is essentially the only place where they can form positive images of one another. “To have a replication and have the signs flip like that, it’s pretty stunning,” Bail told me. “It’s a different conversation in every part of the world.”

Nyhan argued that, at least in wealthy Western countries, we might be too heavily discounting the degree to which platforms have responded to criticism: “Everyone is still operating under the view that algorithms simply maximize engagement in a short-term way” with minimal attention to potential externalities. “That might’ve been true when Zuckerberg had seven people working for him, but there are a lot of considerations that go into these rankings now.” He added, “There’s some evidence that, with reverse-chronological feeds”—streams of unwashed content, which some critics argue are less manipulative than algorithmic curation—“people get exposed to more low-quality content, so it’s another case where a very simple notion of ‘algorithms are bad’ doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. It doesn’t mean they’re good, it’s just that we don’t know.”

Bail told me that, over all, he was less confident than Haidt that the available evidence lines up clearly against the platforms. “Maybe there’s a slight majority of studies that say that social media is a net negative, at least in the West, and maybe it’s doing some good in the rest of the world.” But, he noted, “Jon will say that science has this expectation of rigor that can’t keep up with the need in the real world—that even if we don’t have the definitive study that creates the historical counterfactual that Facebook is largely responsible for polarization in the U.S., there’s still a lot pointing in that direction, and I think that’s a fair point.” He paused. “It can’t all be randomized control trials.”

Haidt comes across in conversation as searching and sincere, and, during our exchange, he paused several times to suggest that I include a quote from John Stuart Mill on the importance of good-faith debate to moral progress. In that spirit, I asked him what he thought of the argument, elaborated by some of Haidt’s critics, that the problems he described are fundamentally political, social, and economic, and that to blame social media is to search for lost keys under the streetlamp, where the light is better. He agreed that this was the steelman opponent: there were predecessors for cancel culture in de Tocqueville, and anxiety about new media that went back to the time of the printing press. “This is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, and it’s absolutely up to the prosecution—people like me—to argue that, no, this time it’s different. But it’s a civil case! The evidential standard is not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ as in a criminal case. It’s just a preponderance of the evidence.”

The way scholars weigh the testimony is subject to their disciplinary orientations. Economists and political scientists tend to believe that you can’t even begin to talk about causal dynamics without a randomized controlled trial, whereas sociologists and psychologists are more comfortable drawing inferences on a correlational basis. Haidt believes that conditions are too dire to take the hardheaded, no-reasonable-doubt view. “The preponderance of the evidence is what we use in public health. If there’s an epidemic—when COVID started, suppose all the scientists had said, ‘No, we gotta be so certain before you do anything’? We have to think about what’s actually happening, what’s likeliest to pay off.” He continued, “We have the largest epidemic ever of teen mental health, and there is no other explanation,” he said. “It is a raging public-health epidemic, and the kids themselves say Instagram did it, and we have some evidence, so is it appropriate to say, ‘Nah, you haven’t proven it’?”

This was his attitude across the board. He argued that social media seemed to aggrandize inflammatory posts and to be correlated with a rise in violence; even if only small groups were exposed to fake news, such beliefs might still proliferate in ways that were hard to measure. “In the post-Babel era, what matters is not the average but the dynamics, the contagion, the exponential amplification,” he said. “Small things can grow very quickly, so arguments that Russian disinformation didn’t matter are like COVID arguments that people coming in from China didn’t have contact with a lot of people.” Given the transformative effects of social media, Haidt insisted, it was important to act now, even in the absence of dispositive evidence. “Academic debates play out over decades and are often never resolved, whereas the social-media environment changes year by year,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting around five or ten years for literature reviews.”

Haidt could be accused of question-begging—of assuming the existence of a crisis that the research might or might not ultimately underwrite. Still, the gap between the two sides in this case might not be quite as wide as Haidt thinks. Skeptics of his strongest claims are not saying that there’s no there there. Just because the average YouTube user is unlikely to be led to Stormfront videos, Nyhan told me, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry that some people are watching Stormfront videos; just because echo chambers and foreign misinformation seem to have had effects only at the margins, Gentzkow said, doesn’t mean they’re entirely irrelevant. “There are many questions here where the thing we as researchers are interested in is how social media affects the average person,” Gentzkow told me. “There’s a different set of questions where all you need is a small number of people to change—questions about ethnic violence in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, people on YouTube mobilized to do mass shootings. Much of the evidence broadly makes me skeptical that the average effects are as big as the public discussion thinks they are, but I also think there are cases where a small number of people with very extreme views are able to find each other and connect and act.” He added, “That’s where many of the things I’d be most concerned about lie.”

The same might be said about any phenomenon where the base rate is very low but the stakes are very high, such as teen suicide. “It’s another case where those rare edge cases in terms of total social harm may be enormous. You don’t need many teen-age kids to decide to kill themselves or have serious mental-health outcomes in order for the social harm to be really big.” He added, “Almost none of this work is able to get at those edge-case effects, and we have to be careful that if we do establish that the average effect of something is zero, or small, that it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be worried about it—because we might be missing those extremes.” Jaime Settle, a scholar of political behavior at the College of William & Mary and the author of the book “ Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America ,” noted that Haidt is “farther along the spectrum of what most academics who study this stuff are going to say we have strong evidence for.” But she understood his impulse: “We do have serious problems, and I’m glad Jon wrote the piece, and down the road I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a fuller handle on the role of social media in all of this—there are definitely ways in which social media has changed our politics for the worse.”

It’s tempting to sidestep the question of diagnosis entirely, and to evaluate Haidt’s essay not on the basis of predictive accuracy—whether social media will lead to the destruction of American democracy—but as a set of proposals for what we might do better. If he is wrong, how much damage are his prescriptions likely to do? Haidt, to his great credit, does not indulge in any wishful thinking, and if his diagnosis is largely technological his prescriptions are sociopolitical. Two of his three major suggestions seem useful and have nothing to do with social media: he thinks that we should end closed primaries and that children should be given wide latitude for unsupervised play. His recommendations for social-media reform are, for the most part, uncontroversial: he believes that preteens shouldn’t be on Instagram and that platforms should share their data with outside researchers—proposals that are both likely to be beneficial and not very costly.

It remains possible, however, that the true costs of social-media anxieties are harder to tabulate. Gentzkow told me that, for the period between 2016 and 2020, the direct effects of misinformation were difficult to discern. “But it might have had a much larger effect because we got so worried about it—a broader impact on trust,” he said. “Even if not that many people were exposed, the narrative that the world is full of fake news, and you can’t trust anything, and other people are being misled about it—well, that might have had a bigger impact than the content itself.” Nyhan had a similar reaction. “There are genuine questions that are really important, but there’s a kind of opportunity cost that is missed here. There’s so much focus on sweeping claims that aren’t actionable, or unfounded claims we can contradict with data, that are crowding out the harms we can demonstrate, and the things we can test, that could make social media better.” He added, “We’re years into this, and we’re still having an uninformed conversation about social media. It’s totally wild.”

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The Origins of Social Media: Identifying the First Platforms that Connected Us

This essay about the origins of social media explores the evolution of digital communication from the 1970s to the early 21st century. It details the transition from Bulletin Board Systems to platforms like Facebook, illustrating how each development laid the groundwork for modern social networking. The text highlights key platforms like Six Degrees, Friendster, MySpace, and LinkedIn, showing their impact on connecting people and shaping online interaction.

How it works

Social media has fundamentally reshaped how we communicate, share information, and connect across the globe. To trace the origins of social media is to chart the evolution of human communication from its analog roots to the intricate digital networks that thread through our daily lives. The journey to the first platforms that connected us unveils a tapestry of innovation, experimentation, and visionary leaps.

Before the internet became ubiquitous, there were precursors to social media that hinted at the potential for widespread digital communication.

In the 1970s, the Bulletin Board System (BBS) was developed. These systems allowed users to dial in through their modems to a shared system where they could post messages, share files, and play games. BBS was primarily local due to the limitations of phone line technology, making long-distance connections costly. However, the foundational concept of creating online communities was established through these systems.

As technology progressed, so did the platforms that connected us. The 1980s saw the rise of CompuServe and America Online (AOL). CompuServe, launched in 1969, became a significant player by providing its users with access to forums and chat rooms where they could interact on topics ranging from science fiction to computer programming. AOL, launched later, popularized the concept of the “chat room” and personalized user profiles, pushing online interaction closer to what we now recognize as social media.

The 1990s introduced more direct antecedents to today’s social media platforms. Six Degrees, launched in 1997, is often regarded as the first true social networking site. It allowed users to create profiles and friend lists, and to directly message others. The name itself—Six Degrees—is a nod to the “six degrees of separation” theory, which posits that everyone is six or fewer social connections away from each other. Although Six Degrees eventually folded in the early 2000s, it laid important groundwork by linking personal profiles within a broader network, a fundamental aspect of all subsequent social media.

Following the closure of Six Degrees, the early 2000s saw the emergence of platforms that would take the core concepts of social networking to new heights. Friendster, launched in 2002, tackled the challenge of connecting real-world friends over the internet. It was designed to help friends-of-friends meet, sparking new connections and recreating social networks online. Despite its initial popularity, technical problems and strategic missteps saw its user base migrate to newer platforms.

MySpace and LinkedIn, both launched in 2003, took divergent paths tailored to different audiences. MySpace became a cultural phenomenon among teenagers and young adults, emphasizing user customization, music, and entertainment. LinkedIn, on the other hand, focused on professional connections, providing a platform for networking, career advancement, and recruitment, underscoring the adaptability of social media to serve varied purposes.

The year 2004 was a landmark year with the launch of Facebook at Harvard University. Originally designed to connect college students, it quickly expanded beyond academic circles to become the most extensive and influential social media platform in the world. Facebook’s model of a “social graph” connecting friends and families set the template for modern social media networks.

The evolution of social media has not slowed since. Platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have expanded the ecosystem, each adding new dimensions and ways to engage. Twitter introduced microblogging with its concise posts, Instagram revolutionized photo sharing and aesthetics, while Snapchat introduced ephemeral, real-time video communication.

In summary, the origins of social media can be traced back to the humble beginnings of online bulletin boards and chat rooms. Each stage of its evolution has been marked by a leap in technology and concept, driven by a desire to connect more effectively. Today’s social media landscape is a dynamic mix of platforms, each reflecting different aspects of human desire for connection, validation, and expression. This historical perspective not only helps us appreciate the profound impact of social media on society but also hints at how it might evolve in the future.

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PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Origins of Social Media: Identifying the First Platforms that Connected Us . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-origins-of-social-media-identifying-the-first-platforms-that-connected-us/ [Accessed: 29 May. 2024]

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Government reform
Civil service reform
Election guidance for civil servants
Cabinet Office
Civil Service

General election guidance 2024: guidance for civil servants (HTML)

Updated 23 May 2024

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/election-guidance-for-civil-servants/general-election-guidance-2024-guidance-for-civil-servants-html

1. General elections have a number of implications for the work of departments and civil servants. These arise from the special character of government business during an election campaign, and from the need to maintain, and be seen to maintain, the impartiality of the Civil Service, and to avoid any criticism of an inappropriate use of official resources. This guidance takes effect from 00:01 on 25 May 2024 at which point the ‘election period’ begins. The Prime Minister will write separately to Ministers advising them of the need to adhere to this guidance and to uphold the impartiality of the Civil Service.

2. This guidance applies to all UK civil servants, and the board members and staff of Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) and other arms’ length bodies.

General Principles

3. During the election period, the Government retains its responsibility to govern, and Ministers remain in charge of their departments. Essential business (which includes routine business necessary to ensure the continued smooth functioning of government and public services) must be allowed to continue. However, it is customary for Ministers to observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long term character. Decisions on matters of policy on which a new government might be expected to want the opportunity to take a different view from the present government should be postponed until after the election, provided that such postponement would not be detrimental to the national interest or wasteful of public money.

4. Advice on handling such issues is set out in this guidance. This guidance will not cover every eventuality, but the principles should be applied to the particular circumstances.

5. The principles underlying the conduct of civil servants in a general election are an extension of those that apply at all times, as set out in the Civil Service Code

The basic principle for civil servants is not to undertake any activity that could call into question their political impartiality or that could give rise to criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes. This principle applies to all staff working in departments.
Departmental and NDPB activity should not be seen to compete with the election campaign for public attention. The principles and conventions set out in this guidance also apply to public bodies.
It is also a requirement of the Ministerial Code that Ministers must not use government resources for party political purposes and must uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service.

Election queries

6. For any detailed queries on this guidance, or other questions, officials should in the first instance seek guidance from their line management chain, and, where necessary, escalate to their Permanent Secretary who may consult the Cabinet Secretary, or the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office.

7. The Propriety and Ethics Team handle general queries relating to conduct during the election period, provide advice on the handling of enquiries and any necessary co-ordination where enquiries raise issues that affect a number of departments (through their Permanent Secretary).

8. In dealing with queries, the Propriety and Ethics Team will function most effectively if it is in touch with relevant developments in departments.

Departments should therefore:

draw to their attention, for advice or information, any approach or exchange that raises issues that are likely to be of interest to other departments; and
seek advice before a Minister makes a significant Ministerial statement during the election period.

Section A: Enquiries, Briefing, Requests for Information and attending events

1. This note gives guidance on:

the handling by departments and agencies of requests for information and other enquiries during a general election campaign;
briefing of Ministers during the election period;
the handling of constituency letters received from Members of Parliament before dissolution, and of similar letters from parliamentary candidates during the campaign; and
the handling of FOI requests.

2. At a general election, the government of the day is expected to defend its policies to the electorate. By convention, the governing party is entitled to check with departments that statements made on its behalf are factually correct and consistent with government policy. As at all times, however, government departments and their staff must not engage in, or appear to engage in, party politics or be used for party ends. They should provide consistent factual information on request to candidates of all parties, as well as to organisations and members of the public, and should in all instances avoid becoming involved or appearing to become involved, in a partisan way, in election issues.

Requests for Factual Information

3. Departments and agencies should provide any parliamentary candidate, organisation or member of the public with information in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Local and regional offices should deal similarly with straightforward enquiries, referring doubtful cases through their line management chain and, where necessary to their Permanent Secretary for decision.

4. Other requests for information will range from enquiries about existing government policy that are essentially factual in nature, to requests for justification and comment on existing government policy. All requests for information held by departments must be dealt with in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The handling of press enquiries is covered in Section I.

5. Where the enquiry concerns the day-to-day management of a non-ministerial department or executive agency and the chief executive would normally reply, he or she should do so in the usual way, taking special care to avoid becoming involved in any matters of political controversy.

6. Enquiries concerning policies newly announced in a party manifesto or for a comparison of the policies of different parties are for the political party concerned. Civil servants should not provide any assistance on these matters. See also paragraph 14.

7. Officials should draft replies, whether for official or Ministerial signature, with particular care to avoid party political controversy, especially criticism of the policies of other parties. Ministers may decide to amend draft replies to include a party political context. Where this is the case, Ministers should be advised to issue the letter on party notepaper. The guiding principle is whether the use of departmental resources, including headed paper, would be a proper use of public funds for governmental as opposed to party political purposes, and could be defended as such.

Speed of Response

8. The circumstances of a general election demand the greatest speed in dealing with enquiries. In particular, the aim should be to answer enquiries from parliamentary candidates or from any of the political parties’ headquarters within 24 hours. All candidates should be treated equally.

9. Where a request will take longer to deal with, the requester should be advised of this as he/she may wish to submit a refined request.

FOI requests

10. Requests that would normally be covered by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) must be handled in accordance with the requirements of the Act and the deadlines set therein. Where the application of the public interest balance requires more time, that is permitted under the Act but there is no general power to defer a decision.

11. Where a request needs to be considered under FOIA it will not normally be possible to get back to the parliamentary candidate, or others, within 24 hours and he or she should be advised of this as they may wish to submit a request more in line with paragraph 8 above.

Role of Ministers in FOIA decisions

12. Ministers have a number of statutory functions in relation to requests for information. They are the qualified person for the purpose of using section 36 of the FOI Act for their departments. During the general election period, Ministers will be expected to carry out these functions.

13. Where there is any doubt, requests should be referred to the FOI Policy team in the Cabinet Office.

Briefing and Support for Ministers

14. Ministers continue to be in charge of departments. It is reasonable for departments to continue to provide support for any necessary governmental functions, and receive any policy advice or factual briefing necessary to resolve issues that cannot be deferred until after the election.

15. Departments can check statements for factual accuracy and consistency with established government policy. Officials should not, however, be asked to devise new arguments or cost policies for use in the election campaign. Departments should not undertake costings or analysis of Opposition policies during the election period.

Officials attending public or stakeholder events

16. Officials should decline invitations to events where they may be asked to respond on questions about future government policy or on matters of public controversy.

Constituency Correspondence

17. During the election period, replies to constituency letters received from Members of Parliament before the dissolution, or to similar letters from parliamentary candidates, should take into account the fact that if they become public knowledge they will do so in the more politically-charged atmosphere of an election and are more likely to become the subject of political comment. Outstanding correspondence should be cleared quickly. Letters may be sent to former MPs at the House of Commons after dissolution, to be picked up or forwarded. Departments and agencies whose staff routinely deal directly with MPs’ enquiries should ensure that their regional and local offices get early guidance on dealing with questions from parliamentary candidates. Such guidance should reflect the following points:

a. Once Parliament is dissolved, a Member of Parliament’s constitutional right to represent his or her constituents’ grievances to government disappears, and all candidates for the election are on an equal footing. This doctrine should be applied in a reasonable way. In general, replies should be sent by Ministers to constituency letters that were written by MPs before dissolution. Where there is a pressing need for Ministers to reply to letters on constituency matters written after the dissolution by former Members, this should be handled in a way that avoids any preferential treatment or the appearance of preferential treatment between letters from the governing party and those from other candidates. It will normally be appropriate to send a Private Secretary reply to letters on constituency matters from prospective parliamentary candidates who were not Members before the dissolution.

b. The main consideration must be to ensure that the citizen’s interests are not prejudiced. But it is possible that a personal case may become politically controversial during the election period. Departments should therefore make particular efforts to ensure, so far as possible, that letters are factual, straightforward and give no room for misrepresentation.

c. Replies to constituency correspondence to be sent after polling day should, where there has been a change of MP, normally be sent direct to the constituent concerned. It should be left to the constituent to decide whether or not to copy the letter to any new MP. Where there is no change in MP, correspondence should be returned to the MP in the normal way.

Section B: Special Advisers

1. Special Advisers must agree with the Cabinet Office the termination of their contracts on or before 30 May (except for a small number of Special Advisers who may remain in post, where the express agreement of their appointing Minister and the Prime Minister to continue in post has been given).

2. An exception to this is where a Special Adviser has been publicly identified as a candidate or prospective candidate for election to the UK Parliament, in which case they must instead resign at the start of the short campaign period ahead of the election.

3. Special Advisers who leave government for any reason will no longer have preferential access to papers and officials. Any request for advice from a former Special Adviser will be treated in the same way as requests from other members of the public.

4. On leaving government, Special Advisers should return all departmental property e.g. mobile phones, remote access and other IT equipment. Special Advisers may leave a voicemail message or out of office reply on departmental IT with forwarding contact details.

5. Special Advisers receive severance pay when their appointment is terminated, but not where they resign. Severance pay for Special Advisers is taxable as normal income and will be paid as a lump sum. The amount an individual is entitled to will be determined by their length of service as set out in the Model Contract for Special Advisers. Special Advisers are required to agree that if they are reappointed, they will repay any amount above that which they would have been paid in salary had they remained in post. Any excess severance will be reclaimed automatically through payroll on reappointment.

6. If the Prime Minister agrees exceptionally that a Special Adviser should remain in post during the election period, their appointment will be automatically terminated the day after polling day. In those cases, Special Advisers may continue to give advice on government business to their Ministers as before. They must continue to adhere to the requirements of the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and may not take any public part in the campaign. Section A is also relevant in relation to the commissioning of briefing.

7. Different arrangements can be made for Special Advisers on, or about to begin, maternity leave when a UK general election is called. These arrangements are set out in the Maternity Policy for Special Advisers, and Special Adviser HR are best placed to advise on specific circumstances.

8. If there is no change of government following the election, a Special Adviser may be reappointed. The Prime Minister’s approval will be required before any commitments are made, and a new contract issued, including for any advisers who have stayed in post.

Section C: Contacts with the Opposition Party

1. The Prime Minister has authorised pre-election contact between the main opposition parties and Permanent Secretaries from 11 January 2024. These contacts are strictly confidential and are designed to allow Opposition spokespeople to inform themselves of factual questions of departmental organisation and to inform civil servants of any organisational or policy changes likely in the event of a change of government.

2. Separate guidance on handling such contacts is set out in the Cabinet Manual.

Section D: Contact with Select Committees

1. House of Commons Select Committees set up by Standing Order continue in existence, technically, until that Standing Order is amended or rescinded. In practice, when Parliament is dissolved pending a general election, membership of committees lapses and work on their inquiries ceases.

2. House of Lords Select Committees are not set up by Standing Orders and technically cease to exist at the end of each session.

3. The point of contact for departments continues to be the Committee Clerk who remains in post to process the basic administrative work of the committee (and prepare for the re-establishment of the Committee in the next Parliament).

4. Departments should continue to work, on a contingency basis, on any outstanding evidence requested by the outgoing committee and on any outstanding government responses to committee reports. It will be for any newly-appointed Ministers to approve the content of any response. It will be for the newly-appointed committee to decide whether to continue with its predecessor committee’s inquiries and for the incoming administration to review the terms of draft responses before submitting to the newly appointed committee.

5. It is for the newly-appointed committee to decide whether to publish government responses to its predecessor reports. There may be some delay before the committee is reconstituted, and an incoming government may well wish to publish such responses itself by means of a Command Paper. In this event, the department should consult the Clerk of the Committee before publication of the report response.

Section E: Political Activities of Civil Servants

1. Permanent Secretaries will wish to remind staff of the general rules governing national political activities. These are set out in the Civil Service Management Code and departmental staff handbooks.

2. For this purpose, the Civil Service is divided into three groups:

a. the “politically free” – industrial and non-office grades;

b. the “politically restricted” – members of the Senior Civil Service, civil servants in Grades 6 and 7 (or equivalent) and members of the Fast Stream Development Programme; and

c. civil servants outside the “politically free” and “politically restricted” groups

3. Civil servants on secondment to outside organisations (or who are on any form of paid or unpaid leave) remain civil servants and the rules relating to political activity continue to apply to them. Departments should seek to contact individuals on secondment outside the civil service to remind them of this. Individuals seconded into the Civil Service are also covered by these rules for the duration of their appointment.

Civil Servants Standing for Parliament

4. All civil servants are disqualified from election to Parliament (House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975) and must resign from the Civil Service before standing for election. Individuals must resign from the Civil Service on their formal adoption as a prospective parliamentary candidate, and must complete their last day of service before their adoption papers are completed. If the adoption process does not reasonably allow for the individual to give full notice, departments and agencies may at their discretion pay an amount equivalent to the period of notice that would normally be given.

Other Political Activity

5. “Politically restricted” civil servants are prohibited from any participation in national political activities.

6. All other civil servants may engage in national political activities with the permission of the department, which may be subject to certain conditions.

7. Where, on a case by case basis, permission is given by departments, civil servants must still act in accordance with the requirements of the Civil Service Code, including ensuring that they meet the Code’s values and standards of behaviour about impartiality and political impartiality. Notwithstanding any permission to engage in national political activities, they must ensure that their actions (and the perception of those actions) are compatible with the requirements to:

serve the government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of their ability in a way which maintains political impartiality and is in line with the requirements of the Code, no matter what their own political beliefs are; and
act in a way which deserves and retains the confidence of ministers, while at the same time ensuring that they will be able to establish the same relationship with those whom they may be required to serve in some future government.

Reinstatement

8. Departments and agencies must reinstate former civil servants who have resigned from “politically free” posts to stand for election and whose candidature has proved unsuccessful, provided they apply within a week of declaration day.

9. Departments and agencies have discretion to reinstate all other former civil servants who have resigned to stand for election and whose candidature has proved unsuccessful. Former civil servants in this category seeking reinstatement should apply within a week of declaration day if they are not elected. Departments are encouraged to consider all applications sympathetically and on their merits. For some individuals, it may not be possible to post them back to their former area of employment because, for instance, of the sensitivity of their work and/or because their previous job is no longer vacant. In these cases, every effort should be made to post these staff to other areas rather than reject their applications.

Section F: Cabinet and Official Documents

1. In order to enable Ministers to fulfil their continuing responsibilities as members of the Government during the election period, departments should retain the Cabinet documents issued to them. Cabinet documents refers to all papers, minutes and supplementary materials relating to Cabinet and its committees. This is applicable to meetings of and correspondence to Cabinet and its committees.

2. If there is no change of government after the election, Ministers who leave office or who move to another Ministerial position must surrender any Cabinet or Cabinet committee papers or minutes (including electronic copies) and they should be retained in the department in line with guidance issued by the Cabinet Office. Ministers who leave office or move to another Ministerial position should also not remove or destroy papers that are the responsibility of their former department: that is, those papers that are not personal, party or constituency papers.

3. If a new government is formed, all Cabinet and Cabinet committee documents issued to Ministers should be destroyed. Clearly no instructions can be given to this effect until the result of the election is known, but Permanent Secretaries may wish to alert the relevant Private Secretaries.

4. The conventions regarding the access by Ministers and Special Advisers to papers of a previous Administration are explained in more detail in the Cabinet Manual. Further guidance to departments will be issued by the Cabinet Office once the outcome of the election is known.

5. More detailed guidance on managing records in the event of a change of administration will be held by your Departmental Records Officer. The Head of Public Records and Archives in the Cabinet Office can also provide further advice and written guidance can be found here:

Guidance management of private office information and records

Section G: Government Decisions

1. During an election campaign the Government retains its responsibility to govern and Ministers remain in charge of their departments. Essential business (including routine business necessary to ensure the continued smooth functioning of government and public services) must be carried on. Cabinet committees are not expected to meet during the election period, nor are they expected to consider issues by correspondence. However there may be exceptional circumstances under which a collective decision of Ministers is required. If something requires collective agreement and cannot wait until after the General Election, the Cabinet Secretary should be consulted.

2. However, it is customary for Ministers to observe discretion in initiating any action of a continuing or long term character. Decisions on matters of policy, and other issues such as large and/or contentious commercial contracts, on which a new government might be expected to want the opportunity to take a different view from the present government, should be postponed until after the election, provided that such postponement would not be detrimental to the national interest or wasteful of public money.

Statutory Instruments

3. The principles outlined above apply to making statutory instruments.

Departmental lawyers can advise in more detail, in conjunction with the Statutory Instrument Hub.

4. The general principle that Ministers should observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long-term character applies to the making of commencement orders, which during the election period should be exceptional. As is usual practice, statutory instruments are required to go through the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee process before they can be laid.

Section H: Public and Senior Civil Service Appointments

1. All appointments requiring approval by the Prime Minister, and other Civil Service and public appointments likely to prove sensitive (including those where Ministers have delegated decisions to officials or other authorities) should be frozen until after the election, except in exceptional circumstances (further detail below). This includes appointments where a candidate has already accepted a written offer (and the appointment has been announced before the election period), but where the individual is not due to take up post until after the election. The individual concerned should be told that the appointment will be subject to confirmation by the new Administration after the election.

2. It is recognised that this may result in the cancellation (or delay) of an appointment by the new Administration, and that the relevant department could be vulnerable to legal action by a disappointed candidate. To reduce the risk of this, departments might wish to:

recommend to their Secretary of State the advisability of bringing forward or delaying key stages in the process, where an appointment would otherwise likely take effect just before or after an election;
issue a conditional offer letter, making it clear that the formal offer of the appointment will need to be confirmed by a new Administration.

3. In cases where an appointment is due to end between dissolution and election day, and no announcement has been made concerning the new appointment, it will normally be possible for the post to be left vacant or the current term extended until incoming Ministers have been able to take a decision either about reappointment of the existing appointee or the appointment of a new person. This situation is also likely to apply to any appointments made by Letters Patent, or otherwise requiring royal approval, since it would not be appropriate to invite His Majesty to make a conditional appointment.

4. In exceptional cases where it is not possible to apply these temporary arrangements and there is an essential need to make an appointment during the election period, departments may wish to advise their Ministers about consulting the Opposition before a final decision is taken. Departments should consult the Public Appointments Policy Team in the Cabinet Office.

5. In the case of public and Senior Civil Service appointments, departments should delay the launch of any open competition during an election period, to give any incoming Administration the option of deciding whether to follow the existing approach.

6. In those cases where an appointment is required to be made, it is acceptable, in the case of sensitive Senior Civil Service positions, to allow temporary promotion.

Section I: Communication Activities during a General Election

1. The general principle governing communication activities during a general election is to do everything possible to avoid competition with parliamentary candidates for the attention of the public, and not to undertake any activity that could call into question civil servants’ political impartiality or that could give rise to criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes. Special care must be taken during the course of an election since material produced with complete impartiality, which would be accepted as objective in ordinary times, may generate criticism during an election period when feelings are running high. All communication activity should be conducted in line with Government Communication Service (GCS) guidance on propriety and propriety in digital and social media .

2. Departmental communications staff may properly continue to discharge their normal function during the election period, to the extent of providing factual explanation of current government policy, statements and decisions. They must be particularly careful not to become involved in a partisan way in election issues.

3. During the election period, access to departmental briefing systems will be restricted to permanent civil servants who will produce briefing, and answer requests for information, in line with the principles set out in Section A of the election guidance. Any updating of lines to take should be confined to matters of fact and explanations of existing government policy in order to avoid criticism of serving, or appearing to serve, a party political purpose.

News Media

4. In response to questions departments should, where possible, provide factual information by reference to published material, including that on websites. Specific requests for unpublished material should be handled in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.

5. Routine factual press notices may continue to be issued – for example statistics that are issued on a regular basis or reports of publicly-owned bodies, independent committees etc., which a department is required to publish.

6. There would normally be no objection to issuing routine factual publications, for example health and safety advice, but these should be decided on a case by case basis, in consultation with the Director or Head of Communications, who should take account of the subject matter and the intended audience. A similar approach should apply to blogs and social media.

7. Press releases and other material normally sent to Members of Parliament should cease at the point at which this guidance comes into effect.

8. Statements that refer to the future intentions of the Government should not be handled by a department and should be treated as party political statements. Where a Minister considers it necessary to hold a governmental press conference to make clear the Government’s existing policies on a particular subject prior to the election, then his or her department should provide facilities and give guidance. Ultimately, each case must be judged on its merits, including consideration of whether an announcement needs to be made, in consultation with the Director or Head of Communications.

9. The Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office must be consulted before a Minister makes an official Ministerial statement during the election period.

10. Statements or comments referring to the policies, commitments or perceived intentions of Opposition parties should not be handled by departments.

Press Articles, Interviews, and Broadcasts and Webcasts by Ministers

11. During the election period, arrangements for newspaper articles, interviews and broadcasts by Ministers, including online, will normally be made on the political network. Care should be taken by communications staff in arranging any press interviews for Ministers during this period because of the possibility that such interviews would have a strong political content. They should not arrange broadcasts through official channels unless they are satisfied there is a need to do so and that the Minister is speaking in a government, not party, capacity.

Paid Media

12. Advertising, including partnership and influencer marketing. New campaigns will in general be postponed and live campaigns will be paused (across all advertising and marketing channels). A very small number of campaigns (for example, relating to essential recruitment, or public health, such as blood and organ donation or health and safety) may be approved by the Permanent Secretary, in consultation with GCS and the Propriety and Ethics Team.

a. International activity. Where marketing is delivered outside the UK and targeting non-UK citizens, the campaign can continue during the election period, subject to Permanent Secretary approval and as long as consideration has been given to the potential for the campaign to garner interest within the UK and to reach UK diaspora. If continuing the campaign is likely to generate domestic interest, it should be paused.

b. Official radio ‘fillers’ will be reviewed and withdrawn unless essential.

13. Films, videos and photographs from departmental libraries or sources should not be made available for use by political parties.

14. Printed material should not normally be given any fresh distribution in the United Kingdom during the election period, in order to avoid any competition with the flow of election material. The effect on departments that distribute posters and leaflets to the public is as follows:

a. Posters. The normal display of existing posters on official premises may continue but efforts should not be made to seek display elsewhere. Specific requests by employers, trade unions etc for particular posters may, however, be met in the ordinary way.

b. Leaflets. Small numbers of copies of leaflets may be issued on request to members of the public and to parliamentary candidates, in consultation with the Director or Head of Communications, who should take account of the subject matter and the intended audience. Bulk supplies should not be issued to any individuals or organisations without appropriate approval.

c. Export promotion stories and case studies for overseas use may continue to be sought in the UK but it must be made clear on each occasion that this information is needed for use abroad, and permission must be sought from the Permanent Secretary before proceeding.

d. The use of public buildings for communication purposes is covered in Section L.

15. Exhibitions. Official exhibitions on a contentious policy or proposal should not be kept open or opened during the election period. Official exhibitions that form part of a privately sponsored exhibition do not have to be withdrawn unless they are contentious, in which case they should be withdrawn.

Social Media and Digital Channels

16. Official websites and social media channels will be scrutinised closely by news media and political parties during the election period. All content must be managed in accordance with GCS propriety guidance.

Publishing content online

17. Content Design: planning, writing and managing content guidance should be consulted when publishing any online content.

18. Material that has already been published in accordance with the rules on propriety and that is part of the public domain record can stand. It may also be updated for factual accuracy, for example a change of address. However, while it can be referred to in handling media enquiries and signposting in response to enquiries from the public, nothing should be done to draw further attention to it.

19. Updating the public with essential factual information may continue (e.g. transport delays) but social media and blogs that comment on government policies and proposals should not be updated for the duration of the election period.

20. Ministers’ biographies and details of their responsibilities can remain on sites, no additions should be made. Social media profiles should not be updated during this period.

21. Site maintenance and planned functional and technical development for existing sites can continue, but this should not involve new campaigns or extending existing campaigns.

22. News sections of websites and blogs must comply with the advice on press releases. News tickers and other mechanisms should be discontinued for the election period.

23. In the event of an emergency, digital channels can be used as part of Crisis Communication activity in the normal way.

Further Guidance

24. In any case of doubt about the application of this guidance in a particular case, communications staff should consult their Director or Head of Communications in the first instance, then, if necessary, the Chief Executive, Government Communication Service, Chief Operating Officer, Government Communication Service, or the departmental Permanent Secretary who will liaise with the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office.

Section J: Guidance on Consultations during an election period

1. In general, new public consultations should not be launched during the election period. If there are exceptional circumstances where launching a consultation is considered essential (for example, safeguarding public health), permission should be sought from the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office.

2. If a consultation is on-going at the time this guidance comes into effect, it should continue as normal. However, departments should not take any steps during an election period that will compete with parliamentary candidates for the public’s attention. This effectively means a ban on publicity for those consultations that are still in process.

3. As these restrictions may be detrimental to a consultation, departments are advised to decide on steps to make up for that deficiency while strictly observing the guidance. That can be done, for example, by:

a. prolonging the consultation period; and

b. putting out extra publicity for the consultation after the election in order to revive interest (following consultation with any new Minister).

4. Some consultations, for instance those aimed solely at professional groups, and that carry no publicity, will not have the impact of those where a very public and wide-ranging consultation is required. Departments need, therefore, to take into account the circumstances of each consultation. Some may need no remedial action – but this is a practical rather than propriety question so long as departments observe the broader guidance here.

5. During the election period, departments may continue to receive and analyse responses with a view to putting proposals to the incoming government but they should not make any statement or generate publicity during this period.

Section K: Statistical Activities during a General Election

1. This note gives guidance on the conduct of statistical activities across government during a general election period. [footnote 1]

2. The same principles apply to social research and other government analytical services.

3. Under the terms of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, the UK Statistics Authority, headed by the National Statistician, is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the integrity of official statistics. It should be consulted in any cases of doubt about the application of this guidance.

Key Principles

4. Statistical activities should continue to be conducted in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and the UK Government’s Prerelease Access to Official Statistics Order 2008, taking great care, in each case, to avoid competition with parliamentary candidates for the attention of the public.

Statistical publications, releases, etc.

5. The greatest care must continue to be taken to ensure that information is presented impartially and objectively.

6. Regular pre-announced statistical releases (e.g. press notices, bulletins, publications or electronic releases) will continue to be issued and published. Any other ad hoc statistical releases should be released only in exceptional circumstances and with the approval of the National Statistician, consulting with the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office where appropriate. Where a pre-announcement has specified that the information would be released during a specified period (e.g. a week, or longer time period), but did not specify a precise day, releases should not be published within the election period. The same applies to social research publications

Requests for information

7. Any requests for unpublished statistics, including from election candidates, should be handled in an even-handed manner, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. Guidance on handling FOI requests can be found in Section A.

Commentary and Briefing

8. Special care must be taken in producing commentary for inclusion in announcements of statistical publications issued during the election period. Commentary that would be accepted as impartial and objective analysis or interpretation at ordinary times, may attract criticism during an election. Commentary by civil servants should be restricted to the most basic factual clarification during this period. Ultimately the content of the announcement is left to the discretion of the departmental Head of Profession, seeking advice from the National Statistician as appropriate.

9. Pre-election arrangements for statistics, whereby pre-release access for briefing purposes is given to Ministers or chief executives (and their appropriate briefing officials) who have policy responsibility for a subject area covered by a particular release, should continue, in accordance with the principles embodied in the UK Government’s Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008.

10. In general, during this period, civil servants involved in the production of official statistics will not provide face to face briefing to Ministers. Only if there is a vital operational need for information, (e.g. an out of the ordinary occurrence of market-sensitive results with significant implications for the economy, or some new management figures with major implications for the running of public services), should such briefing be provided. Any such briefing should be approved by the National Statistician.

11. Requests for advice on the interpretation or analysis of statistics should be handled with care, and in accordance with the guidance in paragraphs 6 and 7.

12. Requests for factual guidance on methodology should continue to be met.

13. Requests for small numbers of copies of leaflets, background papers or free publications that were available before the election period may continue to be met but no bulk issues to individuals or organisations should be made without appropriate approval. Regular mailings of statistical bulletins to customers on existing mailing lists may continue.

Censuses, Surveys and other forms of quantitative or qualitative research enquiry

14. Regular, continuous and on-going censuses and surveys of individuals, households, businesses or other organisations may continue. Ad hoc surveys and other forms of research that are directly related to and in support of a continuing statistical series may also continue. Ad hoc surveys and other forms of research that may give rise to controversy or be related to an election issue should be postponed or abandoned.

Consultations

15. Statistical consultations that are on-going at the point at which Parliament dissolves should continue as normal, but any publicity for such consultations should cease. New public consultations, even if preannounced, should not be launched but should be delayed until after the result of the election is officially declared.

Further Advice

16. If officials working on statistics in any area across government are unsure about any matters relating to their work during the election period, they should seek the advice of their Head of Profession in the first instance. Heads of Profession should consult the National Statistician in any cases of doubt. Queries relating to social research, or other analytical services should similarly be referred to the relevant Head of Profession or departmental lead and Permanent Secretary’s office in the first instance. Further advice can be sought from the Propriety and Ethics Team in the Cabinet Office.

Section L: Use of Government Property

1. Neither Ministers, nor any other parliamentary candidates, should involve government establishments in the general election campaign by visiting them for electioneering purposes.

2. In the case of NHS property, decisions are for the relevant NHS Trust but should visits be permitted to, for example, hospitals, the Department of Health and Social Care advise that there should be no disruption to services and the same facilities should be offered to other candidates. In any case, it is advised that election meetings should not be permitted on NHS premises. NHS England publishes its own information to NHS organisations about the pre-election period.

3. Decisions on the use of other public sector and related property must be taken by those legally responsible for the premises concerned – for example, for schools, the Governors or the Local Education Authority or Trust Board, and so on. If those concerned consult departments, they should be told that the decision is left to them but that they will be expected to treat the candidates of all parties in an even-handed way, and that there should be no disruption to services. The Department for Education will provide advice to schools on the use of school premises and resources.

4. It is important that those legally responsible for spending public funds or the use of public property ensure that there is no misuse, or the perception of misuse, for party political purposes. Decision-makers must respect the Seven Principles of Public Life when considering the use of public funds or property during the election period. The principles include an expectation that public office holders take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit and maintain their accountability to the public for their decisions and actions.

Section M: International Business

1. This guidance specifically addresses the principles that will apply to international business.

2. International business will continue as normal during the period of the general election.

International meetings

3. Decisions on Ministerial attendance and representation at international meetings will continue to be taken on a case by case basis by the lead UK Minister. For example, Ministers will be entitled to attend international summits (such as meetings of the G20).

4. When Ministers speak at international meetings, they are fully entitled to pursue existing UK Government policies. All Ministers, whether from the UK Government or the Devolved Administrations, should avoid exploiting international engagements for electoral purposes. Ministers should observe discretion on new initiatives and before stating new positions or making new commitments (see Section G for further advice on Government decision-making).

5. Where a Minister is unable to attend an international meeting that has been assessed as of significant interest to the UK, the UK may be represented by a senior official. In this case, where an item is likely to be pressed to a decision (a legislative decision, or some other form of commitment, e.g. a resolution, conclusions), officials should engage in negotiations and vote in line with the cleared UK position and in line with a detailed brief cleared by the lead UK Minister. Officials should engage actively where there will be a general discussion or orientation debate, but should seek to avoid taking high profile decisions on issues of domestic political sensitivity. If decisions fall to be taken at an international summit that risk being controversial between the UK political parties, departments should consult their Permanent Secretary about the line to follow who may in turn wish to consult the Cabinet Secretary.

Changes to International Negotiating Positions

6. There may be an unavoidable need for changes to a cleared UK position that require the collective agreement of Ministers. This may arise, for example, through the need for officials to have sufficiently clear negotiating instructions or as a result of the agreed UK position coming under pressure in the closing stages of negotiation. If collective agreement is required, the Cabinet Secretary should be consulted (see Section G). The Cabinet Secretariat can advise departments where they are unsure whether an issue requires further collective agreement.

7. Departments should note that the reduced availability of Ministers during the election period means that it will be necessary to allow as much time as possible for Ministers to consider an issue.

Relations with the Press

8. Departmental Communication staff may properly continue to discharge, during the election period, their normal function only to the extent of providing factual explanation of current government policy, statements and decisions. They must be particularly careful not to become involved in a partisan way in election issues.

9. Ministers attending international meetings will no doubt wish to brief the press afterwards in the normal manner. But where officials attend meetings in place of Ministers, they should be particularly circumspect in responding to the press on any decision or discussion in the meeting that could be regarded as touching on matters of domestic political sensitivity. If departments wish to issue press notices following international meetings on the discussions or decisions that took place, they should be essentially factual. Any comment, especially on items of domestic sensitivity, should be made by Ministers. In doing so, consideration will need to be given as to whether such comment should be handled by the department or the party. This must be agreed in advance with the Permanent Secretary.

International Appointments

10. The UK should not normally make nominations or put forward candidates for senior international appointments until after the election. It remains possible to make nominations or put forward candidates for other positions. Departments should consult their Permanent Secretary and the Propriety and Ethics Team in Cabinet Office on appointments that risk being controversial between the UK political parties.

Section N: The Devolved Administrations

1. The general election does not affect the devolved administrations in the same way. The devolved legislatures are elected separately to the House of Commons. Devolved Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will continue to carry out their devolved functions in those countries as usual.

2. Under the Civil Service Code, which also applies to all civil servants, civil servants in the devolved administrations serve Ministers elected through elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and do not report to the UK Government. Accordingly, this guidance does not apply to them. They will continue to support their Ministers in their work.

3. However, the devolved administrations acknowledge that their activities could have a bearing on the general election campaign. While the devolved administrations will continue largely as normal, they are aware of the need to avoid any action that is, or could be construed as being, party political or likely to have a direct bearing on the general election. Staff in the devolved administrations will continue to refer requests for information about reserved issues from MPs, parliamentary candidates and political parties to the relevant UK department. Requests for information about devolved issues will be handled in accordance with relevant FOI legislation, taking account of the need for prompt responses in the context of an election period.

4. Officials in the devolved administrations are subject to the rules in Section E as regards their personal political activities, in the same way as UK Government officials.

5. Discussions with the devolved administrations during the election period should be conducted in this context. For more general details on how best to work with the devolved administrations see the Cabinet Office guidance: Devolution guidance for civil servants

Section O: Public Bodies

1. The general principles and conventions set out in this guidance apply to the board members and staff of all NDPBs and similar public bodies. Some NDPBs and ALBs employ civil servants.

2. NDPBs and other public sector bodies must be, and be seen to be, politically impartial. They should avoid becoming involved in party political controversy. Decisions on individual matters are for the bodies concerned in consultation with their sponsor department who will wish to consider whether proposed activities could reflect adversely on the work or reputation of the NDPB or public body in question.

This includes departments and their agencies and other relevant public bodies including all public bodies deemed to be producers of official statistics by dint of an Order in Parliament. ↩

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