Instagram vs X

Meta collects a very broad range of information, including your activity, device identifiers, contacts, location signals, partner data and even some data about non-users. In practice, using Instagram feeds a large cross-service profile.

Your information can be used for personalized ads both on Meta products and on other apps and websites, including data from third-party business tools. This means your activity beyond Instagram may affect the ads you see.

If your Instagram account or content is public, it can be seen by anyone, including people without accounts, and may appear off-platform such as in search results. Public content can also be reshared or downloaded by third parties.

Apps and sites connected through login or integrations can access your information, and previously shared data may remain with them even after access expires. Their handling is governed by their own policies, not Meta’s.

Your information may be shared across Meta companies for safety, analytics, product development and connected experiences. This expands use of your data beyond Instagram alone.

Meta says it does not sell your personal information to advertisers and does not share directly identifying details like your name or email unless you specifically permit it. This is a meaningful limit, though profiling still occurs.

Users are offered tools to view, manage, download, port and delete their information. This gives practical control and helps with account exit or switching services.

Deleting content or an account is not immediate: deletion may take up to 90 days, plus up to another 90 days for backups, and some data can be kept longer. Users should not expect instant erasure.

You keep ownership of what you post, but Meta gets a license to use your content for providing and improving its services until deletion is fully completed. This is standard for social media but still significant.

Consumer disputes can be brought in a competent court in your country of main residence under that country’s law. This is better for users than mandatory arbitration or a foreign-only forum.

Meta says it will usually give at least 30 days’ notice before material terms changes take effect, giving users time to review and leave if they disagree. That is more transparent than immediate unilateral changes.

Posting gives X a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, publish, distribute, and display your content in any media. This is much broader than what is strictly needed just to host your posts.

X expressly says it can analyze your content and use it to improve services, including training machine learning and AI models. Users who post may therefore help train AI systems without additional payment.

X collects the contents of Direct Messages, along with recipients, timestamps, and metadata for encrypted messages. Users should not assume ordinary messaging on the service is private from the platform.

X can let other companies, organizations, or individuals use or redistribute your content, including syndication, broadcast, and publication on other media and services. That expands downstream use beyond the platform itself.

X states you will not be paid for its use of your content or for others' licensed uses. The terms treat your ability to use the service as sufficient compensation.

X says it may collect log information even if you do not have an account or are signed out, including pages visited, search terms, ads shown, and cookie identifiers. That means tracking can extend beyond active account use.

X may associate your account with browsers, devices, email addresses, phone numbers, and signed-out identifiers to infer identity. This can make it harder to stay compartmentalized across devices or sessions.

X collects information about your interactions with ads served on X and off X, including views, clicks, and video engagement. This supports ad profiling based on behavior across contexts.

X automatically collects approximate location and can collect precise location if you enable it. Location data can be sensitive, especially when combined with activity and ad profiles.

X says you still own the content you create and post. That is better than an ownership transfer, though it is paired with a very broad license back to X.

If you use features that limit distribution to a restricted community, X says it will respect that choice. This is a useful transparency point, though it does not undo the broad underlying license.