Over the last two decades platforms have become extremely popular where people from all over the world are able to connect and share all kinds of content. The rise of social media was also accompanied by individuals who saw the potential in sharing content, and started to focus on becoming a prominent content creator. In the most recent years, the introduction of genAI has affected the field of content creation on social media. This raises the question whether genAI does more good or causes more harm. For both sides something can be said.
GenAI is constantly improving in its creative capabilities including text, image, video’s and many other creations. Combined with the open accessibility of genAI applications, users from all backgrounds can now participate in creative processes without the need to possess creative expertise (Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2025). Where social media was a field of creative uniqueness 10 years ago, genAI has removed some of the creative barriers that were blocking other users from being content producers. User’s that previously were only receivers of information are being encouraged by AI to be more active. GenAI has countless different applications that can be used to assist non-experienced social media users with delivering posts. ChatGPT can be used for idea generation, images can be generated by Midjourney (Shepherd, 2024) and other applications can even generate entire artificial video’s based on an user’s prompt.
Furthermore, GenAI has the characteristic to be very quick with its content generation allowing for frequent posts. But more posts are not always beneficial for a social media platform as they do not guarantee more quality. This can be because of unoriginality that emerges from users focusing to much on quantity instead of the quality of the content. Additionally, the increased accessibility of genAI can lead to its misuse which can be displayed on social media. Take deepfakes for instance; while deepfakes existed before genAI, there are now more concerns because genAI can create them so easily (The university of Arizona, n.d.). Deepfakes are digital alterations of real people that are often used to spread misinformation. Combined with the quick spread of social media post, instances like this impact social media in a negative way.
Governance
In my opinion, genAI is able deliver more value than harm to social media platforms. But this is only possible when companies ensure sufficient governance efforts. Fortunately, platforms have moved along with the progress of genAI by establishing policies. TikTok, for instance, ask users to label their content as AI generated in the case it is generated or edited by AI (TikTok, n.d.). This allows the content creators to be creative with the use of AI while at the same time protecting the users from being misled. Given the rapid improvements of genAI applications, social media companies should continue to monitor and update their governance when needed, to ensure qualitative contributions by genAI.
References:
Shepherd, I. (2024, March 10). How AI impacts social media content creation. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianshepherd/2024/03/10/how-will-ai-impact-social-media-content-creators/
The university of Arizona. (n.d.). What is a “deepfake?” And how can I recognize images that have been created with generative AI? – University of Arizona Libraries. https://ask.library.arizona.edu/faq/407977#:~:text=Deepfakes%20were%20around%20long%20before,them%20so%20easy%20to%20create.
TikTok. (n.d.). About AI-generated content. https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/ai-generated-content
Universiteit van Amsterdam. (2025, August 29). Call for Papers: GeNAI & Creative Practices – Responsible Digital Transformations. Responsible Digital Transformations – University of Amsterdam. https://rdt.uva.nl/genai–creative-practices/conference/genai–creative-practices.html
