I archived a post on Instagram late last night. Not because it was wrong and not necessarily because I regretted it, but because I was scared of what might happen if I left it up.
Most of you will know that I’ve been sharing my honest thoughts online for years-decades, even- so I’m more than familiar with how this space works. But lately something has shifted. The last few months have felt different, and different felt worth writing about.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but content is no longer being served to our followers. It is not being sent to people who are genuinely interested in us, or those who share a similar moral outlook on life, NOR is it being sent to those who might like a post or simply scroll past if it’s not something that interested them. Instead, it’s being fired into the corners of the internet, where people will be heavily provoked by what was previously just considered someone’s ‘personality’ or ‘sense of humour’. Instagram wants to cause a reaction. They want people to feel a strong emotion and, in a dream scenario, pass it on to other Meta platforms like WhatsApp (insider scoop). It’s a strange thing to witness. Even people who have always played it safe are finding themselves in the crosshairs.
A few facts about cancel culture, to set the scene
According to a 2023 Pew Research study, 58% of Americans say that calling out others on social media is more likely to punish people who don’t deserve it than to hold the right people accountable. A separate study found that online pile-ons typically last 24-72 hours before the algorithm moves on… but the reputational damage can last significantly longer. And perhaps most tellingly, research suggests that the majority of people who participate in cancel pile-ons have never interacted with the person they are targeting. They are not upset fans. They are strangers drawn in by an algorithm serving them outrage.
Cancel culture is not new. Public shaming has existed since humans gathered in groups. What is new is the speed, the scale, and the fact that it is now being actively served to people who weren’t looking for it. There is also a trend shift - lots of people on the internet are actively looking to clip up other people’s material in order to gain a quick win (and maybe a quick buck) because they can’t be bothered to come up with their own stuff… This means people can legally take other people’s work and use it out of context to create narratives that suit their own channel.
And ultimately the algorithm does not care whether you are right or wrong. It cares whether you are interesting enough to keep people on the platform for another thirty seconds. Outrage is extremely good at that. I think there is even a dedicated name for it now - something known as called ‘frictionmaxxing’.
Here are a few examples.
In May 2026, the BBC ran an undercover investigation into the unregulated baby sleep industry. Two consultants at the centre of it - Alison Scott-Wright, known as the Magic Sleep Fairy, and Lisa Clegg, the Blissful Baby Expert - had, between them, decades of experience, celebrity endorsements, bestselling books, and over 136,000 Instagram followers. Parents had paid hundreds of pounds for their advice. And they were, by any measure, gospel. (Let’s not forget that the media gave them this platform)
The investigation found that Scott-Wright had advised an undercover reporter posing as a new mother to place her newborn to sleep on their front - advice directly contradicted by NHS and Lullaby Trust safe sleep guidance. Clegg was filmed recommending placing rolled towels and muslins around a baby in its cot, which experts described as a suffocation and overheating hazard.
The internet, which had previously championed both women, turned overnight. And I mean TURNED. This is worth sitting with…because in this particular case, the backlash was arguably warranted. The advice was dangerous. But I keep thinking about how many cases there are where the situation is considerably less clear-cut, and the pile-on happens anyway at exactly the same velocity.
REMEMBER
“The algorithm does not care whether you are right or wrong. It cares whether you are interesting enough to keep people on the platform for another thirty seconds.”
Earlier this year, my mate Binky, a friend, mother of three and a genuinely warm person, whom I know from our shared Made in Chelsea years, found herself at the centre of what became known as Cakegate. Her PR team had reached out to a luxury London bakery to ask about a gifting collaboration for her son’s third birthday. Standard industry practice, as it turns out. The kind of email that PR teams send to small businesses thousands of times a week across this industry.
The bakery owner went public. The internet caught fire. Binky received death threats. People contacted Marks and Spencer, where she had worked as a brand partner for three years, demanding she be dropped. She described the experience as ‘genuinely frightening’ and said she had seen a very dark side of social media she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
On the FLIP SIDE
Around the same time, Luisa Zissman found herself in similarly choppy waters after complaining on her podcast about unsolicited PR packages turning up at the gates of her home. She had a point… the gifting economy is broken, and consent matters. But the delivery, from a million-pound mansion, did not land well. ‘Rude and entitled’ was the verdict from the internet.
Seems you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t. Can’t ask for gifting, can’t refuse gifting.
And then there was Jamie, another fellow Made in Chelsea alumni, who posted a lovely family montage celebrating six months of his son Ziggy’s life, which included a clip of his wife Sophie cradling the baby in the back of a taxi without a car seat. The comments were ferocious. He removed the clip. In the UK, it is actually legal for children to travel in a taxi without a car seat if the driver doesn’t provide one.
Last night I posted something I was genuinely proud of. A post about getting back into my fitness journey… me celebrating returning to movement, slowly, on my own terms, after years of my body being through things that made exercise feel impossible.
I also made an observation. I noted that we are living in a new landscape-one where a significant proportion of the population is now using GLP-1 injections to suppress appetite. Having worked in the fitness space for almost ten years now, this shift felt markedly different. I said, clearly and without judgement, that it wasn’t the path I wanted for myself right now… that I wanted to rebuild my relationship with my body through movement and the genuine pleasure of eating a sticky toffee pudding from M&S, and why the endorphins and the ritual of that matter to me. I also said, honestly, that if someone had told me GLP-1s could treat inflammatory bowel disease, I’d probably have looked into them immediately. Zero judgement. Just honesty. My dad is on one for flip sake. Apparently it’s good for preventing diabetes and maybe dementia?!?! I wasn’t shrowing shade, I was recognising an ENORMOUS societal shift. (Funny, it’s probably big pharma who have some control over the narrative… whenever there is a seismic shift in mood, the people with money 9/10 are the ones controlling it).
Once upon a time, a post like that would have reached my existing audience. People who know me, follow me by choice, and share enough context to read what I write in the spirit it was intended. They would have engaged with it, or not, and moved on. The truth is, most would have agreed.
But that is not how the algorithm works anymore. A post that mentions GLP-1s is served to EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE currently on a GLP-1. A significant number of those people don’t know me at all. Some of them are not looking for nuance. Some of them are looking for something to be angry about, because anger is the most efficient way to spend thirty seconds on the internet and still feel like you’ve done something. That’s not me being a smart alec, that’s just human psychology.
I watched the comments start to shift. They were lovely for the first hour. Then BAM.. I thought about the last time something of mine went viral for the wrong reasons. And I took it down. Once you’ve experienced that, you develop a particular sensitivity to the early signs of a wave building. You get good at knowing when to move and when to hold your ground.
Last night, I moved. I’m not sure I made the right call. But I made the human one.
Things worth knowing
The majority of people who participate in online pile-ons have never interacted with the target before. This is not accountability. It is a sport.
The algorithm serves content to people based on interest, not relationship. A post about a topic reaches everyone interested in that topic… including people who are specifically looking to be offended by it.
Context is almost always the first casualty. A three-second clip will always travel further than the three minutes that surround it. PEOPLE NEVER READ THE FLIPPING CAPTION.
There is a meaningful difference between genuine accountability, which is necessary and important, and a pile-on, which is indiscriminate and often disproportionate. The internet rarely makes this distinction.
PR is not spin. In 2025, thinking carefully about how your words land out of context is basic self-protection, not dishonesty.
Archiving a post is not the same as admitting you were wrong. Sometimes it is just choosing not to hand strangers a weapon.
I won’t repost it, but I will continue to share about my pretty pathetic fitness journey becuase it will keep me accountable at trying to override my fears. Maybe with more armour around it next time. Maybe not. But I wanted to write this first… because I think a lot of people are quietly making the same calculation I made last night, and not talking about it. And the silence is part of the problem too.
With love, and a slightly higher awareness than I had yesterday…
Louise x
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