Features & insight
Features and insight
Expert analysis, reporting and long reads on the platforms, people and strategies shaping social media.
LinkedIn ends spontaneous livestreaming as platform bets on scheduled events
From 22 June 2026, every LinkedIn Live broadcast must be scheduled in advance. The shift, now in full rollout, reveals how the platform is building a commercial advertising layer that only functions when live content is structured and discoverable.
Disney opens IP vault to TikTok creators, pulls fan videos into Disney Plus
The partnership announced 5 August gives creators licensed access to Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars assets, and makes TikTok videos streamable on another platform for the first time. Disney gets a pipeline of fan content without paying for it.
What Zuckerberg's AI manifesto means for social media marketers
Meta published a 6,500-word letter advocating open AI while signalling a shift away from fully releasing its most advanced models. For social marketers, the gap between the philosophy and the product roadmap is where the real implications live.
California considers fines for creators who don't disclose paid political posts
The state is weighing up to $5,000 penalties per violation to enforce disclosure rules that already exist but are difficult to act on, part of a broader US shift towards regulating influencer political content before the 2028 election.
YouTube doubles Partner Program entry requirements and introduces rolling Shorts threshold
From 1 February 2027, new creators need 8,000 watch hours or 20 million Shorts views to monetise ads and subscriptions. Existing partners face a recurring 10 million Shorts view minimum and must accept updated terms by 31 January. The changes mark the programme's first major overhaul since 2018 and arrive alongside Premium Lite expansion and new incentive schemes for smaller channels.
X shuts Creator Revenue Sharing on 7 September, forces creators to reapply under stricter original content rules
The platform closed new enrollments on 7 August and will retire the programme entirely on 7 September. Every monetised creator must reapply to the new Original Content Rewards system or lose access to payouts. The shift responds to what X calls misaligned incentives that rewarded reposting over original work.
X settles WFA lawsuit after court defeat, but the brand safety damage is permanent
Elon Musk's platform has settled its advertiser boycott lawsuit following a federal dismissal that ruled companies can choose where to spend. The settlement closes the case, but leaves social media marketers navigating a fragmented brand safety landscape with no shared standards.
How Substack's legal defence won a veteran reporter's $1 million defamation fight
Jeff Stein faced financial ruin when a Trump official sued him for reporting the truth. His case reveals why legal support is becoming the deciding factor in whether independent journalists can survive doing their job.
Instagram's algorithm now rewards single-take content over polished posts
A truck driver's lip sync hit 336 million views in a week, proving Instagram's distribution weight has flipped toward low-production content. Brands still relying on high-production posts are ceding reach to competitors who moved to scrappy formats months ago.
Creator Burnout Isn't a Wellness Issue, It's a Leading Indicator of Where Money Moves Next
78% of creators report burnout affecting their health and motivation, and the industry response is already reshaping the creator economy. For brands and social marketers, this isn't a human-interest story. It's a signal of which business models will grow and which will compress.
EU AI Act forces social media to label AI content from 2 August, but most marketers still don't know what counts
Article 50 transparency obligations now require brands to disclose deepfakes and certain AI-generated text on social media. The confusion: what legally needs a label, what the platforms do automatically, and what human review actually exempts.
Snapchat blocks fully AI-generated videos from Spotlight recommendations
The platform has updated its recommendation algorithm to cut wholly synthetic content from discovery, but videos enhanced with Snapchat's own AI tools remain eligible. The shift turns an April signal into a hard line against AI slop.
Why Meta's enterprise AI push is bigger than selling agents to businesses
On Meta's Q2 2026 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg outlined an enterprise AI strategy spanning agents, APIs, compute infrastructure, and internal software. For social media marketers, it signals the platform owner is no longer just a content distribution channel but a potential enterprise tech stack.
Snapchat turns Snap Map into a music discovery engine with real-time Spotify sharing
The platform is adding listening activity to the location data it already surfaces, giving brands and creators a new social signal to tap into. The question is whether passive music sharing becomes an engagement driver or just more ambient noise.
Pinterest crosses $1bn revenue as AI Assistant reaches most US users
The platform's July rollout of conversational AI and Gen Z dominance signal a decisive shift from inspiration to purchase, but Q3 guidance shows the commercial bet isn't fully paying off yet.
Bluesky's Attie AI expands into social research tool as growth slows
The decentralised platform is betting on AI-powered insights to drive engagement and revenue, positioning its Quests feature as a listening tool for the open social web just as user acquisition cools.
YouTube's 'We Are Osos' shows where sports documentary distribution is actually heading
An eight-episode series about NFL and NBA stars buying a Mexican football team premieres exclusively on YouTube today, not Netflix or Disney+. That choice tells you everything about where premium sports content is finding its audience in 2026.
Reddit's beauty report shows marketers what happens when platforms stop dictating trends
The platform's People's Beauty Index reveals users rejecting AI-generated perfection and building beauty culture through conversation instead. For brands, that means rethinking how you show up.
TikTok View+ lets advertisers optimise for 6-second views on Pulse Core premium placement
TikTok's View+ feature adds performance optimisation to its brand-safety-first Pulse Core product, allowing advertisers to chase 6-second view-through rates alongside adjacency to the top 4% of trending content. It's a bet that brand and performance don't have to trade off.
Pinterest moves beyond ads with AI shopping assistant and MCP integration
The visual discovery platform announced Business Assistant, Model Context Protocol integration, and Ask Pinterest at Cannes Lions, shifting from platform updates to infrastructure plays as conversational shopping reshapes product discovery.
Threads hits 500 million users, launches Your Algo to hand control back to users
Meta's text platform reaches half a billion monthly actives and graduates Dear Algo into a private feed control tool, tackling the transparency problem every platform faces but few solve.
WhatsApp's new group features hand moderation power to brands stuck in private channels
WhatsApp rolled out poll upgrades, @all mentions, and spin-off groups on 4 August. The angle everyone's missing: these aren't consumer convenience features. They're moderation and coordination tools for the dark social economy that marketing teams are already running but can't properly manage.
Platforms have stopped asking if AI content belongs. Now they're asking how much people want to see
This week crystallised a fundamental shift in how platforms handle synthetic content. TikTok, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat have all moved from encouraging AI creation to managing AI fatigue, and the question is no longer whether AI belongs on social feeds but whether anyone actually wants it there.