On April 9, 2025, YouTube expressed support for the NO FAKES Act of 2025, introduced by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and announced an expansion of its pilot program that is designed to identify content generated by AI. Through this period, YouTube tried several new ways to generate revenue beyond advertisements. In 2013, YouTube launched a pilot program for content providers to offer premium, subscription-based channels.

Features and tools

The ability to search “Recent” hashtags was temporarily disabled during the 2020 U.S. elections, to prevent the spread of misinformation. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. Now, users are only able to see a curated selection of “popular” posts using a given hashtag.

Content ownership

However, this statement has also been called into question due to other apps with more explicit content allowed on the store, the lack of consequences for men exposing their bodies on Instagram, and for inconsistent treatment of what constitutes inappropriate exposure of the female body. However, new incidents of illegal drug trade have occurred in the aftermath of the 2013 revelation, with Facebook, Inc., Instagram’s parent company, asking users who come across such content to report the material, at which time a “dedicated team” reviews the information. In 2019, Facebook announced that influencers are no longer able to post any vape, tobacco products, and weapons promotions on Facebook and Instagram. On June 23, 2021, Instagram announced a test change to the “suggested posts” feature. The company will put suggested posts ahead of posts from people who the user is following in the Instagram feed, citing positive reception as the reason for this change.

The Daily Beast was provided with a sample of the affected accounts and could confirm that, while many of the email addresses could be found with a Google search in public sources, some did not return relevant Google search results and thus were from private sources. The Verge wrote that cybersecurity firm RepKnight had found contact information for multiple actors, musicians, and athletes, and singer Selena Gomez’s account was used by the hackers to post naked photos of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber. In November 2020, Instagram replaced the activity feed tab with a new “Shop” tab, moving the activity feed to the top. Third-party services can be used for unlimited browsing of public Instagram profiles without having to create an account, as well as for anonymous browsing of someone else’s Stories. Stories are more authentic than typical photos posted as posts because users know that in 24 hours their Stories will remotemode reviews disappear if they don’t add them as highlighted (however users can check who saw their Story for 48 hours after it was published). In February 2016, Instagram announced that it had 200,000 advertisers on the platform.

  • Users can now only receive one direct message from accounts that they do not follow, and must approve the message request before further messages can be sent.
  • On October 4, 2021, Meta services suffered their worst outage since 2008, bringing down Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
  • The policy change and its backlash caused competing photo services to use the opportunity to “try to lure users away” by promoting their privacy-friendly services, and some services experienced substantial gains in momentum and user growth following the news.
  • YouTube typically takes 45 percent of the advertising revenue from videos in the Partner Program, with 55 percent going to the uploader.
  • On December 16, 2019, Facebook announced it would expand its fact-checking programs towards Instagram, by using third-party fact-checkers organizations false information is able to be identified, reviewed and labeled as false information.
  • In 2017, researchers from Harvard University and University of Vermont demonstrated a machine learning tool that successfully outperformed general practitioners’ diagnostic success rate for depression.

Sign up and manage your account

Researchers from the Guizhou University of Finance and Economics and Western Michigan University found that short-form videos like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels may make it easier for young adults and children to develop addictive behavior because short-form videos provide “short bursts of thrills”. These researchers found that college students in the U.S. and China watch short-form videos for entertainment, knowledge, and to build social identities. On February 26, 2025, Instagram Reels came under fire after numerous users reported a sudden surge in violent and graphic content appearing in their feeds.

Data Used to Track You

  • In December 2023, Instagram launched a podcast titled “Close Friends Only” featuring conversations among celebrities.
  • The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don’t garner a desired number of “likes” or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the “emergent behavior” of deleting photos, which deprives the service of content.
  • In May 2007, YouTube launched its Partner Program (YPP), a system based on AdSense which allows the uploader of the video to share the revenue produced by advertising on the site.

Difficulty in finding enough dating videos led to a change of plans, with the site’s founders deciding to accept uploads of any video. In October 2013, Instagram deleted the account of Canadian photographer Petra Collins after she posted a photo of herself in which a very small area of pubic hair was visible above the top of her bikini bottom. Collins claimed that the account deletion was unfounded because it broke none of Instagram’s terms and conditions.

Current members of the program won’t be removed when receiving Community Guidelines strikes. Once you accept YPP terms and link an active AdSense for YouTube account, your channel will automatically be put in a review queue. Our automated systems and human reviewers will review your channel as a whole to make sure your channel follows all of our policies and guidelines. Check back in the Earn section of YouTube Studio anytime to see the status of your application.

Instagram Reels

These labels will show for viewers watching YouTube videos on a mobile device or tablet for now. In order to protect the YouTube community, we may prevent signed-out users from accessing YouTube videos when they’re attempting to download material for offline use. In May 2007, YouTube launched its Partner Program (YPP), a system based on AdSense which allows the uploader of the video to share the revenue produced by advertising on the site.

YouTube has had unprecedented social impact, influencing popular culture, internet trends, and creating multimillionaire celebrities. Despite its growth and success, the platform has been criticized for its facilitation of the spread of misinformation and copyrighted content, routinely violating its users’ privacy, excessive censorship, endangering the safety of children and their well-being, and for its inconsistent implementation of platform guidelines. In 2019, Apple pulled an app which let users stalk people on Instagram by scraping accounts and collecting data. Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one’s body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. In a recent survey, half of the applicants admitted to photo editing behavior which has been linked with concerns over body image.

Discovery (including among others Bravo, USA Network, Syfy, Disney Channel, CNN, Cartoon Network, E!, Fox Sports 1, Freeform, FX and ESPN). The next year, the site celebrated its “100th anniversary” with a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including a parody of Keyboard Cat. In 2012, clicking on the image of a DVD next to the site logo led to a video about a purported option to order every YouTube video for home delivery on DVD. In 2013, YouTube teamed up with satirical newspaper company The Onion to claim in an uploaded video that the video-sharing website was launched as a contest which had finally come to an end, and would shut down for ten years before being re-launched in 2023, featuring only the winning video. A video of two presenters announcing the nominated videos streamed live for 12 hours.

By doing so, users can easily access curated Stories from the past week that they might not have seen previously. Importantly, this feature will only display Story Highlights—curated collections of Stories saved by users—rather than standard Stories that disappear after 24 hours. Users will only be able to view these Highlights after they have gone through all current Stories in their tray, meaning that those who follow many accounts may find it challenging to see these updates. On March 1, 2021, Instagram launched a new feature named Instagram Live Rooms, which lets four people go live together. In May 2021, Instagram announced a new accessibility feature for videos on Instagram Reels and Stories to allow creators to place closed captions on their content.

Where to apply

IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to one hour in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB. The app automatically begins playing videos as soon as it is launched, which CEO Kevin Systrom contrasted to video hosts where one must first locate a video. In September 2022, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined the company $402 million under privacy laws recently adopted by the European Union over how it handled the privacy data of minors.

In June 2012, Instagram introduced “Explore”, a tab inside the app that displays popular photos, photos taken at nearby locations, and search. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. In April 2016, Instagram added a “Videos You Might Like” channel to the tab, followed by an “Events” channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October.