Elon Musk has been ordered to answer to a federal judge concerning his takeover of Twitter in an ongoing US Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform.

In a follow-up to a preliminary ruling in December 2023, the SEC and the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX now have seven days to agree on a date for him to testify, otherwise, it will be decided for them.

As reported by Reuters, Musk previously refused to attend an interview in September as part of the overall probe of his acquisition of Twitter, which he later rebranded as X.

US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler sided with the regulator on that occasion after Musk’s dismissive action was prompted by claims of harassment. He insisted the subpoena was requesting irrelevant information, as well as undergoing two interviews, but that argument was rejected.

Ongoing dispute

The SEC is challenging whether Musk adhered to the correct legal process when filing the necessary paperwork for his purchase of Twitter and if he made misleading statements during the transaction. It is seeking further answers from the 52-year-old, who also argued the subpoena fell outside the SEC’s authority as it was issued by a staff member appointed by the SEC’s Director of Enforcement.

Beeler ruled the subpoena is valid, throwing out Musk’s claims which brings us to the latest stage of this legal saga. The Magistrate’s next action could be to hear both representations, to set a new hearing date, if they do not agree.

Musk has also taken additional action, asking the US Supreme Court for a review, citing his constitutional right to free speech following the December decree.

Tensions between the X supremo and the SEC commenced back in 2018 when the body sued him after he tweeted “funding secured” relating to a potential move to take Tesla private. Musk agreed to a Tesla lawyer vetting his tweets regarding the company, to settle the case, but he was sued again, the following year, for an alleged breach of the agreement.

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Meta has announced that across its social media platforms artificial intelligence (AI) generated images must be labeled going forward.

The labeling system that will be titled “Imagined with AI” seeks to help users navigate the images that are created using AI software and those taken by a user traditionally.

Synthetic and non-synthetic content

Meta will be rolling out the watermark on the images created by its own generator and will be a standard for other major AI image generators such as Midjourney, Dall-E, and Bing Image Creator that have images uploaded to the company’s platforms.

The social media conglomerate is working with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) standards to clearly mark what “synthetic and non-synthetic content” is, according to the release.

C2PA is a Joint Development Foundation project from Adobe, Arm, Intel, Microsoft, and Truepic that hopes “to address the prevalence of misleading information online through the development of technical standards for certifying the source and history (or provenance) of media content,” according to the site’s mission statement.

Founded in 1965 in the United Kingdom, the IPTC is an established media and news agency coalition that develops and promotes industry standards.

Meta also said that audio and visual content are things they cannot identify from other companies that have been generated using AI. The company will add the option for users to tag this content as non-synthetic content to inform and protect users.

The company release said that users must use this “label tool when they post organic content with a photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.”

The recent release strengthens Meta’s policies and rules on image and video content across all of its platforms, focusing especially on the well-being of minors.

Earlier this year, new content rules came into place to stop nude images from being sent to vulnerable users of Meta’s social sites as an optional feature.

With this momentum of policy and content changes, Meta is shaping up to be an industry leader in the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence and content verification.

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We’re not surprised that another big tech company is announcing layoffs in its ranks — there has been a lot of that already in 2024. You can now add Snapchat social network to the list announcing layoffs — about 529 employees. Not surprisingly, the company gives reasons like less market spending on digital ads. Still, interestingly, the company mentions the Russian-Ukrainian war as one aspect of the employee reduction that we haven’t seen explained, and Snap didn’t specify the areas for the targeted layoffs.

Snap is restructuring, which includes the cancellation of the original series. Earlier this year, the company signed extended content arrangements with Disney, ViacomCBS, and NBCUniversal.

In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission today, Snap disclosed its layoffs. Snap stated it was doing so “to best position our business to execute on our highest priorities and to ensure we have the capacity to invest incrementally to support our growth over time.” The corporation will incur a one-time charge of $55 million to $75 million, mainly to cover the severance payments of the impacted employees. Still, the company will save approximately $500 million annually in costs once the payout is done.

Snap cut about 20 percent of its staff in 2022, and at the beginning of 2023, Snap had about 5,300 employees and cut about 3 percent of those. Snap will report its fourth quarter 2023 earnings tomorrow, which may give greater insight into what’s going on with the company.

Snap seems to have had trouble growing outside its main social networking layout and offering. Other hardware initiatives, like a selfie Pixy drone, were abandoned almost immediately after its debut — and the augmented reality glasses weren’t even widely made available (even to those of us who tried to purchase them).

The CEO of Snap, Spiegel, set some aggressive goals for 2024, hoping the daily users will grow by 17 percent and bump up Snapchat+ 750 million monthly users and Daily Active Users (DAUs).

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At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings today, GOP Sen. Josh Hawley demanded that Mark Zuckerberg stand and face the families whose kids were harmed by online abuse — and he did. The Senate hearing was contentious, yet Zuckerberg stood and faced the families watching the hearing: “No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invested so much,” he said. Parents and other family members were holding up photos of their children as Zuckerberg spoke.

For the first time, five major social media platform giants were in Washington. CEOs of X, Snap, and Discord, Linda Yaccarino and Jason Citron, will testify before Congress. Speakers include Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok, who have both addressed lawmakers before.

It was reported that all of the CEOs exited the room quickly after the hearing

It was reported that all of the CEOs exited the room quickly and quietly after the hearing — taking no questions and leaving through a side door. But what type of legislation will it take to pass both houses of Congress? As pointed out, Washington has been discussing these issues for years with nothing done about it. One notable comment from Klobuchar, “It’s been 28 years since the internet. We haven’t passed any of these bills … The reason they haven’t passed is because of the power of your companies, so let’s be really, really clear about that what you say matters. Your words matter.” — Klobuchar, on the lack of legislation.

Zuckerberg pushed back on Sen. Blackburn’s comment about “Meta’s social media sites are trying to be “the premier sex trafficking site in the country.” Zuckerberg: “That’s ridiculous.”

However, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt said, “There is a consensus today that didn’t exist, say 10 years ago, that there is a profound threat to children to mental health, to safety.” The statement gave hope to many in the room. After questioning the CEOs about layoffs, Welch noted that it is “alarming that the reductions have been on those very people who were protecting things (online).

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Social media executives are set to testify at a US Senate hearing aimed at addressing online child exploitation. The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X, formerly known as Twitter, are expected to defend their stance on Wednesday amid growing concerns and questions about how platforms are considering their impact on children.

Among the politicians attending the hearing, Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters, “We’re going to work hard to hold their feet to the fire.” Ahead of the meeting, Blumenthal met up with students to discuss the mental health crisis, which he says is driven by social media.

Our young people are on the frontlines of a youth mental health crisis driven by social media.

Today I met with Conard High School students to discuss their experiences on these platforms, the importance of the Kids Online Safety Act, & this week’s hearing with Big Tech CEOs. pic.twitter.com/baXV0VrWpE

— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) January 29, 2024

This is not the first instance of Big Tech executives being summoned before the Senate. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress in 2018 concerning the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the spread of fake news on the platform. However, representatives from the various tech firms invited for the hearing mentioned that their CEOs plan to extend gestures of goodwill towards senators and the public by supporting specific legislative proposals and providing policy commitments.

X’s head of U.S. and Canadian public policy, Wifredo Fernandez, told NBC News that CEO Linda Yaccarino is set to express backing for the SHIELD Act and additional child protection laws.

The SHIELD Act, introduced by Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, will criminalize the distribution of sexually exploitative images of a minor that does not constitute sexually explicit content as required under the legal definition of child pornography.

According to POLITICO, a Snapchat spokesperson said its owner, Evan Spiegel, would support the Kids Online Safety Act, which would force social networking sites to promote online safety by tackling illegal material and content that is harmful to children, conducting regular risk assessments, and properly enforcing age limits.

Social media platforms face various lawsuits

In October, a massive lawsuit filed by 33 states accused Meta of knowingly designing its platforms to be addictive and harmful to children’s mental health. The claims originate from internal research leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, revealing that 13.5% of teenage girls reported Instagram worsens suicidal thoughts, and 17% stated it aggravates eating disorders.

CNN reported that Rosemarie Calvoni was also suing Meta and other social media companies over her daughter’s struggle with anorexia.

Only days ago, Meta announced a partnership with the Center for Open Science in a bid to deepen the understanding of how social media usage may affect users’ well-being, particularly among younger demographics. At the same time, it unveiled a major privacy update, marking a significant stride in teen user protection. However, it has received criticism for disbanding its responsible AI team last year amidst the ongoing issues surrounding user well-being.

Featured image: Canva

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Universal Music Group has warned it will pull its music from TikTok upon the expiry of the current deal which licenses content to the popular social media platform.

A dispute has emerged between the two companies with the Chinese-owned video hosting service responding with claims Universal is prioritizing greed ahead of the interests of artists and songwriters.

The multinational music production company released a statement detailing how it has failed to agree to fresh terms with TikTok, amid claims of pressure being applied on them, with the existing arrangement due to expire on 31 January.

“The companies have not agreed to terms for a new agreement and upon expiration of the current agreement, Universal Music Group (UMG), including Universal Music Publishing Group, will cease licensing content to TikTok and TikTok Music services,” it read.

That followed a communication titled “Why We Must Call Time Out on TikTok”, in which UMG outlined its concerns and the lack of progress in their dialogue.

Describing TikTok as “an increasingly influential platform with powerful technology and a massive worldwide user base”, UMG explained how it retains concerns after “pressing them on three critical issues, appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

The statement went on to address remuneration and how TikTok “proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay,” further highlighting the current impasse.

“Ultimately TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music”, added the statement from the powerful, leading music label that boasts an array of performers including Taylor Swift, Sting, Alicia Keys, Drake, Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, Adele, U2, Elton John, Coldplay, and many more.

Narrative and rhetoric

The counter-claim from TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese internet giant ByteDance, stressed it had been able to reach “artist first” agreements with all other major publishers.

Their statement fired a shot at Universal accusing them of acting in their own interests:

“It is sad and disappointing that Universal Music Group has put their greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”

“Despite Universal’s false narrative and rhetoric, the fact is they have chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent. Clearly, Universal’s self-serving actions are not in the best interests of artists, songwriters, and fans.”

Image: Cottonbro/Pexels

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Social media platform X has moved to block searches of Taylor Swift after explicit AI-generated deepfake images of the pop star went viral last week.

Deepfake images of the singer in sexually explicit scenarios alongside fans of NFL team the Kansas City Chiefs were circulated on various social media platforms, leading to Swift considering legal action. X initially battled to remove the images from the platform but struggled due to new accounts regularly reposting them.

But today (Jan 29), when searching for Swift on X, a message appears that says: “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”

In a statement issued to the BBC, X’s head of business operations, Joe Benarroch, said it was a “temporary action” to prioritize safety.

On Friday, X issued a separate statement, per the BBC, in response to the photos to remind its users that posting non-consensual nudity on the platform is “strictly prohibited.”

The statement said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards such content.

“Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them.”

Furthermore, the images of Taylor Swift have caught the attention of the White House, who last week called the spread of AI-generated deepfake photos “alarming,” as reported by The Verge. The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre called for legislation to tackle the misuse of AI technology on social media and also told platforms in this space that they have a responsibility to put processes in place to ban such content.

What is AI deepfake content?

The word ‘deepfake’ originated by combining the terms ‘deep learning’ and ‘fake.’ A deepfake piece of content is a video or image that uses AI technology to substitute the likeness of one person with another.

This kind of technology isn’t exactly new, with Hollywood often using deepfake methods to superimpose actors’ features into films. However, now that the technology has become more widely available to the public, and as AI technology continues to become more advanced, there are increasing concerns about the ethics behind this type of content creation. This is never more evident than right now, as Taylor Swift has found it in the most intrusive of ways.

As the technology evolves it is becoming more and more difficult to spot deepfakes, whereas in the early stages, it was relatively easy to differentiate between AI-generated content and genuine images or videos.

Featured Image: Jana Zills, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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The first weeks of 2024 have seen a large number of layoffs throughout the gaming industry, which has led to social media users sharing comments previously made by the late Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, as reported by NME.

Iwata oversaw the launch of the Nintendo DS and Wii, both great successes for the Japanese company, during his time as Nintendo president, taking office in 2002 before he died in 2015. But as CEO, he experienced Nintendo’s turbulent launch of Wii U, which is widely considered to be a flop.

It was the failure of Wii U that led to Iwata going to the lengths that not many CEOs of large tech companies have done, which is to take a 50% pay cut to avoid mass company layoffs. At the same time, other top executives reduced their salaries by 20%.

And it’s a decision that people are being reminded of now as the tech sector continues to suffer widespread layoffs in the first month of 2024. Speaking in 2013, Iwata said: “If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.

“At Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo’s business in the long run.”

They’re words that Nintendo fans on social media have been praising once again, with many calling for top tech chiefs to follow Iwata’s lead by cutting their salaries before deciding to axe thousands of employees.

Iwata’s comments resurfaced following Microsoft’s decision to lay off 1,900 employees from Activision Blizzard, Xbox and ZeniMax earlier this week, months after its $69 billion acquisition was approved by regulators. Also this week, Riot Games announced 500 layoffs.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick earned an average $77,306 per hour in 2022, according to NME, while Xbox boss Phil Spencer reportedly has an annual salary of $10 million a year. Since the acquisition, Kotick has stepped down and left the business but Spencer has remained in his position.

So it’s no wonder fans have been calling for those on larger salaries to start taking the hit instead of effectively punishing employees on smaller salaries when cost-cutting measures are needed or structural changes are made.

Satoru Iwata (god bless him) took a 50% pay cut after WiiU's poor sales TO NOT LAY OFF WORKERS and you can't tell me that the higher ups of Riot couldn't do the same and still earn a good salary? pic.twitter.com/xWBl52IkzN

— PunyPenguin // Princess of Harmony is Coming! (@PunyPunyPenguin) January 23, 2024

Brutal start to 2024 for the tech industry

The aforementioned layoffs by Microsoft and Riot Games take the total number of tech industry layoffs since the turn of the year to almost 24,000 from 85 different companies in the sector.

Earlier this week, both TikTok and eBay announced layoffs of 60 and 1,000 respectively, while Google has also announced hundreds of job losses earlier in January.

According to layoffs.fyi, over 260,000 tech jobs were axed in 2023, which was the worst year for the industry since the global pandemic disrupted global economies in 2020.

Featured Image: Official GDC, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Meta has announced that it is preparing to launch stricter safety tools to block children from receiving and sending nude images, the social media giant said in a blog post on Thursday.

The tool, which will be available to all users but mainly aimed towards women and teenagers, will be an optional setting on both Facebook and Instagram and will also be active in encrypted messages. This follows criticism from the government and police after Meta decided to encrypt Messenger chats by default.

It is a feature, Meta says, which is solely designed to protect users from either being sent or pressured into sending nude images, while an additional policy change to Meta’s primary platforms will be that minors are unable to receive messages from strangers. Instagram and Messenger already prevent adults over the age of 19 from messaging teens who do not follow them by default.

Meta says it has “developed more than 30 tools and features to help support teens and their parents.” These latest updates take the protection of minors online to a new level of safety. The California-based firm has said it will release more information regarding the features designed to help protect teens from seeing potentially inappropriate images in their messages later this year.

Will Meta’s new safety tools put parents’ minds at rest?

The BBC reports that police chiefs in the UK have said young people sending nude images on social media contributed to a rise in sexual offenses committed by children in England and Wales.

What’s more, legal filings made public as part of a US lawsuit against Meta allege company documents show around 100,000 teenage users of Facebook and Instagram are sexually harassed online every single day.

Therefore, Meta’s responsibility to keep its young users safe cannot be understated, and these most recent updates suggest they are taking that responsibility seriously. The fact they will be available with encrypted messages, too, will be a positive move in the eyes of concerned parents.

The tech company first launched a parental supervision tool on Instagram in 2022, which includes giving the parents the ability to set time limits, and schedule breaks, to be notified when their teen blocks or reports someone and to be notified when their settings have been changed.

Recent changes have given parents even more control, with changes to safety and privacy settings now requiring parental approval.

CEO of ConnectSafely, Larry Magid, said: “Empowering parents to approve or deny requests to change their teen’s default settings gives parents the tools they need to help protect their teens, while at the same time respecting their teens’ privacy and ability to communicate with their friends and family.”

Featured Image: Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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X has announced it will introduce a new login method in the form of passkeys – a secure technology that was implemented last year by Google.

Passkeys, a safe and convenient alternative to conventional passwords, use characteristics from your pre-authenticated device, such as the user’s Face ID, fingerprint or PIN instead of having to type out a long password each time you need to access your account.

The social media network, formerly known as Twitter, has outlined how to use passkeys on its help centre page.

Although the new method has been lauded for its advances, traditional passwords are not being phased out, not yet anyway. Passkeys are currently an optional feature but the concept should become more prevalent as more websites and apps embrace it as time goes on.

Eventually, it should become the standard form of online access but until further notice, passkeys are only available for iOS users on X.

How do passkeys work?

Once registered, your device will produce two cryptographic keys, one known as a public key which is then shared with the website or app it is to be deployed on, and a private key to be securely stored within your device.

When you need to log in to the relevant online space, you will choose the passkeys option for authentication using your device’s unique characteristics, as mentioned above.

The public and private keys then connect to verify your identity without revealing the private details to any outside source.

The benefits of using passkeys are clear.

Given the secure, seamless technology used with the new method, you will not need to remember or store complex passwords or reset them.

Passkeys are not held on servers, significantly reducing the risk of phishing or other cybercrime and another asset is that they can be utilized across all your devices, eradicating the need for a separate log-in on each one.

Image: X/Twitter.

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Brands and celebrities will be able to join BeReal as influencers, as the beleaguered social media platform attempts to regain its market share. From February 6, “RealBrands” or “RealPeople” will be introduced, allowing fans to have access to stars in a way that is supposedly less curated.

The French social media app encourages users to share a photo of themselves and their immediate surroundings given a randomly selected two-minute window every day. Billed as the anti-Instagram, it emerged in 2020, out of a growing call for less artificial content online. However, BeReal is altering its fundamental features by introducing well-known yet unfamiliar individuals.

“RealPeople isn’t about influencing, amassing likes or comments, or promoting brands. You won’t see photoshopped pictures, product recommendations or ads disguised as posts,” the platform stated last year, according to Benzinga.

On its website, the company added, “To qualify for a RealPeople or RealBrand account, you must be a notable person or brand and have an existing BeReal account.” According to TechCrunch, BeReal announced an increase in its daily active users to 23 million, up from 20 million in August, indicating an incremental rise. However, with its growth slowing down, BeReal faces the challenge of user engagement and retaining its audience.

Is BeReal on the decline?

The app achieved remarkable success, with 53 million downloads in October 2022, according to research from Sensor Tower. However, its daily active users significantly declined, with Vogue claiming that it dropped from 20 million in October 2022 to 6 million by March 2023.

In the past year, BeReal also introduced several new features, including groups, mentions, the ability to post multiple times a day, pinned posts, and a “friends of friends” feed. A Pew study estimated that about 13% of U.S. teenagers are using the app.

Around 90% of teenagers use YouTube, making it the most popular platform in the Pew survey. Likewise, TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram continue to be favorites among teens. A significant portion of youths aged 13 to 17 report using TikTok (63%), Snapchat (60%), and Instagram (59%). Hence, BeReal seems to be facing challenges in sustaining its initial success.

On top of this, it has been struggling to make money from this model. With RealBrands and RealPeople, users are still required to post spontaneously at the designated time. However, this move towards incorporating brands could be seen as BeReal’s initial step towards generating revenue.

TechCrunch has reported a statement from the company, noting: “For those of you concerned that this is changing our focus, we can assure you that BeReal will always be about friends and close connections first.”

Featured image: Canva / BeReal

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Social media giant, TikTok, has laid off around 60 of its workers and a latest round of restructuring within the business, as reported by NPR.

The cuts have mostly come from its sales and advertising department across the US, with employees in Los Angeles, New York and Austin affected, as well as other roles abroad.

The video-sharing platform boasts 150 million active users and employs around 7,000 employees in the US alone. Meanwhile, its parent company, ByteDance, employs more than 150,000 people globally.

TikTok‘s last round of layoffs came in 2022 as part of global restructuring efforts and then again in 2023 when Dublin-based recruitment staff were axed.

ByteDance also made hundreds of cuts at Marvel Snap developer Nuverse last year. It’s estimated that the Chinese giant is the most valuable private company in the world at $225 billion.

More pain for the tech industry?

TikTok’s announcement is the latest of a long list of tech industry lay-offs over the last couple of years. Job tracker website, layoffs.fyi, estimates that almost 11,000 tech jobs have been shed by 63 different tech companies in the first month of 2024, while 2023 saw the industry slash over 260,000 roles, which was the largest number of cuts since the global pandemic of 2020 led to widespread layoffs.

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, called 2023 “the Year of Efficiency” in light of the sector’s widespread cuts last year.  Meta alone cut 10,000 jobs in 2023 to bring the workforce to the level it was in mid-2021.

Meanwhile, the likes of Google and Amazon have also announced plans to slash thousands of jobs this year as the industry collectively pivots towards developing AI tools.

According to NPR, Silicon Valley analysts are forecasting a much kinder year when it comes to company restructured and downsizing, although the level of cuts the sector has suffered in the first month of this year will not have done much to allay fears of another brutal year for tech workers.

Featured Image: Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

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The world’s biggest YouTuber, MrBeast, has confirmed a video he posted on X has generated over $250k in ad revenue.

The 25-year-old, who boasts 234 million YouTube subscribers having risen to fame with videos of audacious challenges and huge cash giveaways, recently announced he was curious to see how much revenue one of his videos would make on the platform previously known as Twitter. A week later, that video had amassed almost 160 million impressions, over 5 million engagements and precisely $263,655 in revenue for the creator.

In true MrBeast fashion, he then revealed he was going to give it all away at random to 10 of his 27 million X followers.

However, the content creator did admit he believed there to be a slight caveat to the success of his video. He said: “It’s a bit of a facade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience.”

MY FIRST X VIDEO MADE OVER $250,000!

But it’s a bit of a facade. Advertisers saw the attention it was getting and bought ads on my video (I think) and thus my revenue per view is prob higher than what you’d experience pic.twitter.com/nViVpZbWBb

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) January 22, 2024

How much can X content creators get paid?

Ever since Elon Musk opened up the possibility for verified X users to earn a cut of advertising revenue, many users have benefited from simply posting on the platform. X claims users are eligible to get paid up to 97% of the revenue they earn from the content they create, with the percentage dropping down to up to 90% once lifetime earnings hit $50,000.

Revenue increases as the engagement rate on a user’s post increases, while having a large number of followers also helps the algorithm. Put simply, advertisers pay more to have their brand alongside tweets they know have high engagement and from users who have a large, highly engaged audience.

Influencer Marketing Hub has created a handy calculator that gives users a rough idea of how much each of their tweets would earn in X ad revenue, based on their overall engagement rate. They list tactics such as specializing in a niche, naturally building a following, providing value to your audience, and engaging with followers as good ways to help grow the changes of earning revenue with X.

Earlier this year, Musk announced creators on X would see rewards “increase significantly.”

Featured Image: MrBeast on X

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Meta is set to allow EU users of its Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger apps to unlink their accounts due to an upcoming change in legislation.

Specifically, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will mean the world’s biggest social media provider must comply with the new rules, impacting users in the European Union, the European Economic Area (EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) and Switzerland.

The roll-out is anticipated over the next few weeks with the legal directive due to take effect in March, Meta said in a company blog on Monday (Jan.22)

Essentially, it means that people can still use Meta’s platforms without their information being shared between them. Typically, features such as personalized content, targeted ads, and post sharing would have been implemented between the different social media apps.

The change is all about choice as well as an important measure of regulating how gatekeepers can share data between services. The DMA is said to include an array of rules aimed at improving competition online and to level the playing field for businesses that rely on gatekeepers to provide their services.

Facebook users can opt to use Messenger as a stand-alone service, or they can even stay on the latter without having an account on the main service.

The change will also apply to Facebook Marketplace and Gaming but a warning has been sounded if a main Facebook account is disconnected, for example, you would need to communicate with buyers and sellers via email, rather than Messenger.

How can I unlink my Meta accounts in the EU?

With the immediate requirement for Meta to adhere to the changes in Europe, users should expect to be notified quite soon on how this will happen. The social media giant described how notifications will be distributed with all of the relevant information enclosed.

Meta also outlined their support for the DMA: “We are committed to continue working hard to ensure that Meta’s products in the EU comply with the DMA and deliver value to people – we have assembled a large cross-functional team staffed by senior employees from around the globe and across our entire family of apps to achieve that.”

The development comes after Google announced earlier this month how it was reacting to the DMA. Its director of legal, Oliver Bethell, outlined the tech giant’s preparations including how data would no longer be shared across the likes of Youtube, Google Maps, and Chrome.

Google has already displayed prompts on some phones asking if users want to keep Google services linked.

Image: Julio Lopez/Pexels

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X is rolling out audio and video call capability to Android users, after it was introduced for iOS users in October 2023.

The news was let slip by an X engineer working on the project who relayed that the release would be available on Android after an app update.

Any user of Elon Musk’s social media platform can receive a call but only paid users can make a call. The new function on the app is one of a growing list only subscribers can utilize, although earlier this month X removed support for NFT profile images.

audio and video calls on X slowly rolling out for android users today! update your app and call your mother

— Enrique (@enriquebrgn) January 18, 2024

How to access the call function on X

Users should head to the settings selection to take control of the new call features.

Settings > Privacy and safety > Direct Messages > Enable audio and video calling.

The same menu options give you the option to manage who can call you, from different categories of people in your address book, people you follow, and verified users.

You can choose multiple options, or none, from these selections.

This development appears to signal another move toward X becoming a universal app, a one-stop shop similar to China’s WeChat. It has already set out its intentions for the coming year with AI, unsurprisingly, set to play a prominent role. It will be used to aid search and advertising capabilities whilst there are plans to launch peer-to-peer payments.

Musk also has Twitch in his sights, aiming to take on the Amazon-owned platform with monetized live streams on X.

It remains to be seen how successful this update will be for the social media entity formerly known as Twitter. It is playing catch-up with the likes of Whatsapp, Facebook, and Facetime in offering video and audio call functionality, but the new function will give users one more reason to stay on the X with more new features to follow.

Image: Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels.

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Until now, users needed 1,000 followers on TikTok to access its live-streaming features. Now, however, any user who is a “LIVE creator on another platform with a stable live-streaming history” can apply to live stream on TikTok.

The criteria TikTok is basing this on seem nebulous and non-specific. The page states that each application will be evaluated based on the “influence you have” and the “quality of your LIVE content on other platforms”. Any user who is approved will be able to live stream on TikTok from both LIVE Studio and PC or console.

Essentially this means that anyone who has a history of streaming on a platform like Twitch or YouTube can apply to stream on TikTok without meeting the previous 1,000 follower minimum requirement.

TikTok appears to be letting any gamers, regardless of follower count, apply to access streaming on TikTok Live, as long as they have a stable history of streaming on another platform.https://t.co/s8axqdu33R#StreamerNews #TOSgg pic.twitter.com/XFlzHLeQqB

— Zach Bussey (@zachbussey) January 18, 2024

What are the requirements to renew access?

If you get approved for TikTok live streaming, it will only last 14 days initially. However, access will be automatically renewed for 180 days if:

• You haven’t had your access revoked through breaching TikTok’s community guidelines
• You have gone live on TikTok for more than 25 minutes at least twice during the first 14 days

Then after the 180 days elapse, you’ll be automatically renewed for another 180 days if:

• You have gone live on TikTok for more than 25 minutes at least three times during the past 30 days

How to stream on TikTok from PC

1. Download TikTok LIVE Studio and install it on your PC
2. Login with your TikTok login information
3. If you’ve never streamed from your PC before, you can use the “set up now” option, which walks you through setting up microphone and camera
4. If you’ve streamed using another tool such as OBS, you can import settings to TikTok studio
5. Set up the settings you want when the Settings dialogue pops up. Setting video quality to 1080p will allow viewers to have a better experience than a lower quality if your PC can handle it.
6. Finally, the Scene Setting window will pop up. Choose ‘Fullscreen desktop’ to stream just your game, or ‘Fullscreen desktop and camera’ if you want to show your face. Showing your face helps viewers connect with you so is generally worth doing.
7. You’re ready to go live! Hit the ‘Broadcast LIVE’ button and give your stream a name then press ‘Go LIVE’.

After TikTok’s parent company ByteDance closed down the Nuverse gaming brand in late 2023 it seemed that they were moving away from gaming as a primary part of their strategy. Opening up live streaming to a wider audience will certainly regain some of that lost ground.

Featured image credit: Alexander Shatov/ UnSplash

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Reddit is set to launch its initial public offering (IPO) in March, following up on plans more than three years in the making according to an exclusive report from Reuters.

It would represent the first IPO of a significant social media platform since Pinterest was floated on the market in 2019, and at a time when there is significant competition for advertising revenue with the likes of Facebook and TikTok.

Reddit is a San Francisco-based mega-website combining elements of social media, messageboards and news aggregation. It was founded in June 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian who sold the platform to Condé Nast the following year. Huffman left the company in 2009 before returning as CEO, in 2015.

Last month, he spoke on speculation of an IPO to follow as well as the admission that Reddit was not profitable despite enjoying a user base of approximately 400 million accounts.

An IPO offering has previously been suggested but plans have been delayed until the company is closer to returning a profit and it looks like the time is now to test the water.

Floodgates to open

Reuters has indicated the company is “seeking to sell about 10% of its shares in the IPO”, whilst it “will decide on what IPO valuation it will pursue closer to the time of the listing,” according to their sources.

The information came with the caveat detailing the plans could be pushed back again but after Reddit quietly filed for its IPO back in December 2021, it will eventually need to strike out if the aspired returns are to be delivered.

It will be interesting to gauge to what extent Reddit users back the proposed listing, whilst Nasdaq reported “Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are the two investment banks working with Reddit” with a sense of optimism and aiming for a breakthrough IPO launch that could open the floodgates for others to go public in 2024.

The IPO market has been muted since the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to stave off the pressures of inflation but that could be about to change with candidates like Reddit, as well as Shein, inching toward a public launch.

Image: Brett Jordan/Pexels

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Donaldson will likely join X — he is an Elon Musk fan

The post YouTuber, MrBeast, tests X following an invitation from Elon Musk appeared first on ReadWrite.

Elon Musk has promised that X creators will soon earn more for their posts, in response to a public blasting from MrBeast.

On December 30, YouTube creator MrBeast took to X to promote a new video. When a fan asked him in the comments to upload on X as well, Musk added his voice with a simple “yeah”.

Creator rewards will increase significantly this year https://t.co/TlQKxFci9y

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2024

In response, MrBeast wrote: “My videos cost millions to make and even if they got a billion views on X it wouldn’t fund a fraction of it :/ I’m down though to test stuff once monetization is really cranking!”

A few weeks later, on January 9, Musk announced that creator monetization would “increase significantly this year”. While he didn’t mention MrBeast directly, it could well be a response to his and others’ feedback.

With MrBeast uploading for an audience of 229 million subscribers on YouTube, he’s certainly a force to be reckoned with in the creator market. It wouldn’t be surprising for Musk to be led by his preferences.

Elon Musk and X creator talent

It’s long since been a part of Musk’s plans to attract top influencer talent to the platform since he took hold of the reins. As far back as October 2022, Musk promised “higher compensation for creators” than on YouTube – something many, including MrBeast were skeptical of.

“I’d be shocked if you crack that code,” the YouTuber wrote on X at the time. Another major YouTuber, Olajide Olatunji, better known as KSI, told fellow YouTuber Logan Paul on his podcast in August of 2023 “Impaulsive” that he didn’t think X “paid that much.”

“There are going to be people who are like, you got $1,500 from Twitter? Which is cool,” Paul said. “But comparatively is what we’re saying, to other platforms, for hundreds of millions on YouTube, that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

At the moment, creators are eligible to get paid up to 97% of the revenue X has earned from the content they create, after in-app purchase fees. This is capped at $50,000 in lifetime earnings from X across all X monetization products, after which it drops to 90% of revenue.

In real terms, however, it’s unclear what this breaks down as. With ad revenue down across most social media and for X in particular, it’d be wise for any creator not to put all their eggs in one basket.

Featured image: Pixabay

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Australia’s eSafety commissioner has blasted the social media platform X after it found that over 6000 banned accounts have been reinstated following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media giant.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner launched a scathing attack on the social media giant, formerly known as Twitter, stating it had created a “perfect storm for safety to be diminished” in Australia. She cited thousands of banned accounts which were subsequently reinstated, cuts to staff tasked with ensuring online safety, and procrastination on hate reports which were discussed in the organisation’s new report.

As reported by the country’s ABC News, Commissioner Julie Inman Grant went on to compare the situation to putting dangerous drivers back on the road without any further safety measures.

A legal notice was sent to the parent company of X in June last year to request urgent answers on how it was measuring up to the safety expectations set out by the Australian government. Ms Inman Grant has now revealed the “jaw-dropping” response to the communication with a prediction that X will only become more unsafe.

X accused of posing risks to Australia’s users

Since October 2022, when Musk acquired what was then known as Twitter, 6,103 accounts have been reactivated after they were banned. 194 of this figure had been suspended for hateful conduct.

“There needs to be some sort of oversight or scrutiny to ensure that they’re not continuing to present greater risks to Australian users,” implored Inman Grant.

She also revealed X had cut its “global trust and safety staff” by 33% since the takeover, which will have obvious consequences. It was further claimed median response times to hateful direct messages had slowed by 75% and could now take up to 28 hours, with responses to hateful general posts slowed by 20%.

This was met with further dissatisfaction by the Commissioner, “the current response time is absolutely too long and it’s not in line with previous practice, or what we would consider best practice,” she stated.

In response, X said it had introduced a new system of “restricting” hateful posts instead of deleting them. It claimed such restricted posts would not be visible next to advertising with the company outlining they received 81% percent fewer “impressions” (views) than posts which were unrestricted.

Image credit, Catarina Sousa, pexels.com

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