I finally compared how X and Instagram handled the same protest video last week

X left the original 8-minute clip up with just a warning label while Instagram took it down in under 2 hours claiming it violated their policies, and I wonder if anyone else has checked which platform actually preserves more raw footage from local events.

3 comments

3 Comments

taylor30525d ago

Nah I gotta disagree a bit. I've been digging through both apps for local stuff and X definitely keeps way more raw footage up compared to Instagram. Instagram deletes stuff ALL the time if it gets flagged enough, even if it's old. X might be messy lately but at least the content stays there for people to see.

evan_stone25d ago

I left the original 8-minute clip up with just a warning label" - but that doesn't really tell the full story. X has been leaving a lot of stuff up lately that probably should get taken down, especially with how bad the moderation has gotten. I checked a few local protest videos from my area and Instagram actually kept some up longer than X did, just with a blur on them. The thing is, both platforms are picking and choosing based on what gets them less heat from advertisers, not really about preserving raw footage. Maybe X keeps more up in the short term but Instagram has been better about not deleting old posts that are already there.

casey90925d ago

Oh man, I actually read something about this the other day on some tech blog! They were saying X's new moderation team is basically a skeleton crew compared to what Twitter used to have, so stuff just sits up there forever unless it goes viral in a bad way. Instagram's automated systems are way more aggressive even if the human moderators are slow, which explains why they blur things instead of deleting them sometimes. But honestly I saw a comparison where they tracked how long violent protest footage stayed up on both platforms and X kept some stuff for weeks while Instagram pulled it within hours. So I think it really depends on what kind of content you're talking about and how many reports it gets.