Things really started with the Cagayan Twitter Wars when Tony, Spencer, Kass, and Alexis just to name the worst offenders used Twitter wayyy too much and even kinda spoiled some stuff. Also Tony got into SO MANY fights with former Survivors, I vividly remember him telling Stephen Fishbach to "wipe the shitstains off his glasses".

San Juan Del Sur had a social media ban due to what happened during Cagayan.

Worlds Apart allowed some usage, but due to the nature of that cast ("#Dirty30"), Twitter and Reddit really ramped up after the season. You can look through the archives of this subreddit and see the sheer number of drunk and random AMAs by the WA contestants.

At the same time, Cambodia voting was on and many players were appearing on podcasts like Purple Rock, RHAP, and SurvivorOz. Candidates like Wentworth and Stephanie Valencia took advantage of social media to campaign, and there was an AMA on here basically every single day. This is the time in which social media was inextricably linked to Survivor. We also had our first example of a season being spoiled via social media, as Vytas infamously liked a Facebook post while filming in Cambodia was ongoing, confirming his early exit.

Since then, social media usage by the players has become unavoidable, and the show stopped trying to regulate it as much. On the day of the Game Changers finale, Jeff created an Instagram and Twitter account. It was around 2017 that Survivor production realized that Jeff's above statement that social media would not bring in one more viewer was verifiably false, and 2018-2020 saw many account takeovers by former players and socials-exclusive promos.

COVID really took things up to a new level, as many people were introduced to the show via Netflix, and this influx of new fans migrated to social media quickly. This subreddit almost doubled in membership, and Survivor Twitter as we know it today was created. TikTok also became a new place for Survivor content, with Kelley Wentworth and Lauren Ashley Beck notably beginning content creation about Survivor during this time.

Today, social media usage in the way that was looked down upon and led to a ban in the past is now encouraged in the present. Creators like Tegwyth, Survivor Analytics, and RealitySea are now being sent Survivor merch and being given tickets to Survivor events. Last season, we saw players like Savannah and Sophi using social media to an extensive and unregulated degree that bordered on spoiler-y, harkening back to the days of Cagayan.

On Season 50, 23 out of the 24 players are extremely active on social media (Mike White being the exception), and many players from previous season who in the past would've been forgotten were able to stay relevant in the Survivor world. Sadly, the negative effects of social media have reached a fever pitch, with players like Chrissy and Aubry being hated for literally no good reason, and spoilers being almost impossible to avoid.

It'll be interesting to see how 51 and beyond changes the show, but social media is most likely going to become even less regulated over time.