TikTok could be a messy divorce
The latest news and trends for those keeping up with the internet, including updates on MidJourney, LinkedIn, 𝕏, Snapchat, and more.
We might all be the children of a messy divorce soon.
The recent House vote to potentially ban TikTok (unless it splits from its Chinese overlord ByteDance) might be THE prime example in the textbook of how lawmakers overstep bounds in the name of… #nationalsecurity. Or something.
At its core, the bill (met with overwhelming support in a 352-65 vote) has very little to do with actual security concerns and everything to do with the idea that anything tied to China must be distrusted and destroyed. Not only does this POV ignore historical context and literal decades of successful business relations with China, but it feels like a precedent for tech isolationism.
And that’s a problem for creators.
Creators and businesses on TikTok are staring down the barrel of uncertainty for now. The TikTok ban, if passed, pokes holes in the nature of creative and digital freedom. The playground for everyone gets smaller, the rules get tighter, and the content — the center of it all — suffers. Creators and brands that thrive on TikTok might struggle on other platforms, and the music industry, which has seen numerous hits born from TikTok virality, could lose a primary platform for discovery. Plus, we'd witness the erosion of a key source of internet culture:
So what if the ban actually happens? According to rep. Jeff Jackson, who made a post on *shocked pikachu* TikTok defending his reasoning for voting for the bill, the chance of the app getting banned is “practically zero for a lot of reasons: financial, political, geopolitical.” Jackson has since lost around 200k followers on TikTok.
Obviously, Instagram and YouTube are waiting in the wings to offer a new home for displaced TikTok creators (+ their followers and advertisers). It goes without saying this shift will go to benefit the oligarchy — tech giants like Google and Meta. TikTok is probably the most valuable app on the planet that they don’t already control, and that realization must be jarring for Silicon Valley.
If the alternative to facing a ban (or dealing with regulatory encroachment like massive app store fines) is to divest from ByteDance, TikTok might be the crown jewel. During previous attempts to force a sale of TikTok, Microsoft showed interest in acquiring TikTok's US operations. Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s former treasury secretary, is reportedly rounding up investors to broker a deal. More vultures will circle as the stakes get higher.
For now, all we can do is brace for the impact and keep the spirit of the doomscroll alive.
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AI & Creator Tools
👯 MidJourney’s character reference hits big
Users have been chasing character consistency in MidJourney since its 2022 inception but it’s always required workarounds and loopholes and time to get it right.
Now with the new “—cref” parameter, anyone using MidJourney can create remarkably consistent generations from a single reference image. Similar to the “Style Reference” feature rolled out a few months back, this new character reference parameter takes it a step further by integrating actual features of your reference image into your prompt.
How it works: Simply add —cref <URL> to the end of your prompt, where <URL> is the link to an image of the character you want to reference. In the images above, I used the left photo of myself as the character reference with a simple prompt.
🤖 𝕏 publishes Grok’s backend architecture. In the name of transparency (and with a strikingly OpenAI flair), X has released the code base (including weights and architectures) for its AI model, Grok-1. Developed by xAI, this non-specialized Mixture-of-Experts model reflects Elon Musk's aim for unbiased AI — complete with snarky remarks and dad jokes. Grok’s architecture and training details are now available on GitHub.
Social News & Trends
🚫 BeReal hits a wall. Once a buzzy app advocating for real connections only, BeReal is now facing tough times. Despite its initial surge to 70 million daily active users, it's currently stagnating at 25 million and attempts to make a comeback look bleak. The core issue? A near-exhausted funding pool with only about 10 months left and lukewarm investor interest. With no clear monetization strategy, BeReal is facing a dilemma: seek Series C funding or get acquired. It’s a familiar lifecycle of many short lived apps (remember Vine??) where the harsh realities of sustaining innovation while maximizing revenue means the pressure is on full-blast.
🚀 LinkedIn opens all posts to sponsorships. Fancy yourself a thought leader on LinkedIn? Now, any LinkedIn post can be sponsored by a brand — not just posts from employees. This update means users could see their LinkedIn posts (including content such as reviews or testimonials) promoted by a business, which translates to increased reach for creators. While there's no monetization structure for this yet, getting a post sponsored could significantly increase exposure and influence on the platform, giving LinkedIn creators a new way to get recognized and be amplified.
📱 Snapchat's disappearing act… no more? Snapchat is testing a new feature to let users keep messages indefinitely, straying from its iconic disappearing message gimmick. This "Never delete" option, an answer to user feedback, is a pretty significant shift that will likely facilitate a more traditional messaging experience. Here’s how the setting looks:
While the update challenges Snapchat's original ephemeral charm — aka the entire reason why Snapchat exists in the first place — this update aims to provide flexibility and control with auto-deletion still as the default. Designed for those wanting to preserve conversations, it’s clearly an effort to adapt to evolving user preferences and probably attract a wider audience.
📌 𝕏’s in-feed pinned posts. We mentioned this was coming, but now it’s being tested in live production. X wants to make your top content more visible to followers in the "For You" feed by surfacing a new side-scrolling feature. It showcases pinned posts more prominently but requires users to scroll to see them:
Limited to one pinned post every 48 hours per profile, its effectiveness in boosting engagement is TBD. It could be a new strategy for increasing reach on X — or at the very least, it’ll ensure your pinned posts don’t just die on a timeline on a profile.
Other social updates to keep a pulse on:
🔄 Instagram is upping carousel posts to 15 images, giving brands and creators more space to showcase and contextualize in a single update.
🌐 LinkedIn is enhancing "Collaborative Articles" with support for multiple languages, more precise prompts, a new feedback option, and better content distribution.
👀 Reddit is rolling out "Free Form Ads" which look and feel like organic posts integrated seamlessly into Reddit's content flow (and boast a 28% higher click-through rate according to initial tests).
🔍 TikTok just launched "Creator Search Insights” — a new tool to help creators tailor content based on trending searches, highlighting popular and underserved topics for improved engagement and potential rewards.
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