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Hello, geeks!

Well that escalated quickly, Elon!

It’s been a disastrous week for Musk and X. 😬

xAI’s Grok started calling itself ‘MechaHitler’ and spewing antisemitic comments.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino quit. TBF, she lasted about 12 months longer than many of us expected.

And Threads is reportedly rapidly closing in on X’s daily app user total

Also this week…

TikTok’s new US-only version of the app, Meta blowing $200M to poach a top Apple AI exec, Jack Dorsey’s new WhatsApp-rival messaging app… plus more than 50 new platform features spotted in the wild…

…And my utterly insane VIP weekend at the British F1 (see below) 👇

Grab a drink. Switch on ‘do not disturb mode’. We’ve got lots to dig into.

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Oasis, F1, and Being the Least Famous VIPs in the Room 🎸🏎️

Last weekend was epic. And completely bonkers!

Friday night kicked off with the Oasis Live 25 reunion gig at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium — and yes, it was everything we hoped for.

2.5 hours of wall-to-wall anthems: Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, Masterplan, Don’t Look Back in Anger... If you get the chance to go — go!

Then, because one mind-blowing event clearly wasn’t enough…

We woke up at stupid-o’clock Saturday morning to head to Silverstone for the British F1 Grand Prix.

And thanks to the FIA, we had money-can’t-buy VIP passes: paddock access, pit lane walk, even on the starting grid minutes before lights out. Wild!

We were easily the least VIP people in the paddock. Within 5-minutes found ourselves brushing past Jose Mourinho, Keanu Reeves, Gordon Ramsay, Vin Diesel, Tom Holland, Tommy Fury, Jeremy Clarkson, and more.

We got the chance to check out the Red Bull garage in the pit lane, took a look around Max Verstappen’s car, and bumped into Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, and Charles Leclerc. It was surreal.

Want to see which other celebs we grabbed a selfie with, the backstage F1 madness, and the moment autograph hunters realised we were absolute nobodies…? 😆

Check out my Instagram Story 👈 😲

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

Geekout’s pick of the hottest headlines in social this week:

2. TikTok is reportedly developing a US-only version of the app with separate data and code [SPLITTING]

3. xAI rolls back changes to Grok after controversial ‘MechaHitler’ responses [HATING]

4. YouTube tightens monetisation rules to kill off AI-slop: mass-produced, repetitive, low-effort videos [CLEANING]

5. Bluesky to add age verification in the UK, to comply with the Online Safety Act [VERIFYING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

TikTok (logically) seems to be planning a US-only app

The news that TikTok is reportedly planning to launch a US-only version of its app caused a stir this week. The company might have denied the accuracy of one of the reports, which claimed the new app would have separate data and code, but there was no flat-out denial of the overall thrust of the news.

And that’s no surprise. It has always seemed logical that a US-owned TikTok would be separate from rest-of-world TikTok. This separate version is reportedly planned for launch on 5 September, 12 days before Trump’s (latest!) deadline to sell or shut down.

A “clean-room” approach with completely separate data could help TikTok live on in the US, while letting ByteDance continue to operate the version everyone else outside China uses. Of course, it would mean audiences outside the US might be starved of American creators, and vice-versa.

A US-only version of CapCut is also reportedly in the works.

Trump says the US “pretty much has a deal” for an American TikTok acquisition, but ByteDance has denied agreeing to sell its US TikTok operations to Oracle.

So the overall picture remains as unclear as ever. And without clear data safeguards and algorithm transparency, brands aren’t lining up to spend on a new version of TikTok.

Meanwhile, this week’s developments around TikTok have raised wider concerns about Donald Trump’s power. The letter he sent Apple to keep TikTok on the App Store has emerged, indicating he has granted himself sweeping powers to overturn laws… and no-one is exactly rushing to stop him.

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Grok goes Naxi as Yaccarino bails from X

Given Elon Musk’s history with far-right talking points and gestures, it’s perhaps unsurprising that his Grok AI chatbot declared itself ‘MechaHitler’ and went on a hate speech spree this week.

The recently ‘improved’ (AKA less “woke”) Grok criticised Democrats and Hollywood’s ‘Jewish executives’, and that was just the start. The unhinged reactions to user prompts and questions just got worse.

xAI rolled back the changes, with Musk attributing the bot’s behaviour to it being “too eager to please” users looking for hateful responses.

That wasn’t all. A Turkish court blocked Grok after it insulted President Erdoğan, the state’s founder Atatürk, and religious figures. And Poland urged the EU to investigate Grok after it praised Hitler and called Poland’s PM a “traitor.”

With all this going on, the news that X CEO Linda Yaccarino had quit the company seemed like a direct response to Nazi Grok. But apparently it was unrelated and had been in the works for a while.

Let’s face it, it’s a tough job to improve an ad business that keeps getting sabotaged by the owner, and she apparently lost power when xAI and X merged recently.

As if to memory-hole the whole incident, xAI launched its new Grok 4 model later in the week, with the typical bombast and hype we’ve come to expect from the launch of a new model from any foundational AI tech company.

But while Grok 4 performs very well on AI benchmark tests, it seems to consult Elon Musk’s X posts to answer controversial questions - a sign there could be more controversy to come.

Meanwhile, X advertisers remain silent after all this drama… but hey, if the alternative is to get sued for not advertising, you probably would too. X is NOT a healthy company.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else you need to know from the past seven days…

Meta / Facebook / Messenger 👥

• Meta is giving away its verified subscription plan for free to selected creators

• Meta has launched a global marketing messages tool for Messenger

• Messenger has added the ability to @mention friends in Notes

• Meta has rolled out new Partnership Ads API features to streamline creator monetisation.

• Meta’s latest big AI hire reportedly quit his job as Apple’s AI boss Ruoming Pang after an eye-watering eight-figure offer

• Meta’s next-gen Ray-Ban glasses have seemingly leaked in render form. They feature upgraded battery life and “super sensing” AI for object and scene recognition.

• Meta has invested $3.5 billion in the world’s largest eye-wear maker, EssilorLuxottica SA

• Facebook now supports profile pic imports from linked Instagram accounts and has brought back the option to add a frame to your page profile picture

• Messenger added an option to turn previews of shared Facebook content on or off in messages

• Messenger Notes now have an expiry option

• Meta is promoting the Meta Verified Business tiers with a new message shown in Instagram Search

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Instagram ✨

• Instagram is now automatically adding music to a post shared as a story

• Instagram Edits has new insights for individual Reels, tools for cleaner audio, plus better sharing and export tools on iOS

• Instagram Edits has made it easier organise and track content ideas

• Instagram added a shortcut to access the Edits app from the new Reels creation page

• Instagram now lets you upload a custom image to build a theme on your channel

• Instagram has added a message reminder feature to notifications on iOS

• Instagram is rolling out its cross-app engagement feature to more users

• Instagram added a ‘Recent Stories’ carousel on Android

• Instagram now lets you “say hi with a sticker” as an opening message

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Threads 🧵 / WhatsApp 🟢

• Threads has enabled a ‘Threads Party Hat’ feature for your profile pic, to celebrate its second birthday 🥳

• Threads is rolling the Markup feature out to more users

• WhatsApp is working on a feature to organise message replies into structured threads

• WhatsApp is rolling out a ‘raise hand’ feature for calls

• WhatsApp is working on a feature to search for draft messages through a preset chat list

• WhatsApp is working on a feature to react to voice and video calls with any emoji

• WhatsApp is working on a feature to offer businesses credits for broadcasting messages

• WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that expands the GIF keyboard layout from two to three columns

__________

Twitter (‘X’) 🤡

• X says India forced it to block 2,355 accounts, including Reuters and ReutersWorld, without justification

• X must face trial in Don Lemon’s lawsuit alleging breach of contract, a judge has ruled

• X has landed big names like Serena Williams for its video push

__________

YouTube 📺

• YouTube is launching a tool that lets creators share audience and channel data with brands

• YouTube is removing its ‘Trending’ and ‘Trending Now’ listings, which will be replaced by a series of category-specific charts

• YouTube’s video player is getting a sleek revamp with transparent, rounded UI bubbles.

• YouTube pirates are cashing in on Hollywood’s summer blockbusters

• YouTube is rolling out a new assistant to recover a hacked account

• YouTube has given Shorts a landscape mode - but it’s not recommended unless you really need it

• YouTube has added a new “Image” sticker on mobile Android and iOS.

• YouTube says its new monetisation rules won’t punish reaction channels—unless they’re lazy

__________

TikTok 📱

• TikTok has launched of its own ‘TikTok Sans’ font, so you can take the TikTk text style across to other platforms, apps and tools

• TikTok has been spotted limiting users to no more than five hashtags

• TikTok is testing Bulletin Boards, similar to Instagram broadcast channels, with a limit of 20 messages per day

• TikTok is once again under investigation in the EU over data transfers to China

• TikTok now lets you create a playlist for posted recordings of live recorded events.

• TikTok now allows content creators to share live highlights with gifters.

• TikTok has teased ‘Scaled LIVE Rewards’ for TikTok Live

• TikTok has added filters for saved drafts

• TikTok tapped Lewis Capaldi to help teens chill after 10pm

__________

Snapchat / LinkedIn / BeReal / More… 👻

• LinkedIn has launched a new Member Post Analytics API that integrates with 11 tools, including Later, Hootsuite, and Buffer

• Snapchat has launched an in-app AR experience for the Palace of Versailles in France

• Bluesky has added Twitter-style notifications to follow account activity in real time, and repost activity notifications

• Mastodon has teased quote posts with controls to block, revoke, and monitor quotes

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🔥 Want to see more hot NEW features spotted in the wild this week?

Just head to the ‘More news’ section below!

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🤖 SOCIAL AI

The newest social media AI features spotted this week:

The new Grok 4 model from xAI beat OpenAI and Google in ARC and Humanity’s Last Exam benchmarks

The “Heavy” model uses multiple AIs in parallel to solve problems, and Elon Musk says it’s academically unbeatable… but controversy from Grok’s antisemitic posts still looms large…

Also spotted this week 👀

• X now translates posts using Grok, rather than Google

• xAI’s Grok now has a ‘Schedule a Task’ feature

• xAI has added two new voices to Grok AI’s iOS app

• Meta’s new Partnership Ads API update includes AI-driven content recommendations and dynamic ad header formatting

• WhatsApp is testing the ability to generate AI-powered chat wallpapers using Meta AI

• WhatsApp is testing default suggestions to help users start chats with Meta AI

• YouTube is testing an ‘Ask Studio’ AI analytics bot for creators

• TikTok has added AI bots to chat with, with topics like Write, Daily Tarot, Study, Travel Ideas and Creator Tips

• TikTok is rolling out a new text-to-image feature

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

When I’m quoted in the news, you’ll find it here:

I took the pulse of advertiser interest in the reported US version of TikTok, for The National.

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😆 LOL

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🌡️ VIRAL

TikTok Shop might be struggling in some regards, but it’s become a Labubu hotspot…

Also going viral this week: 🔥

• TikTok is full of “crashing out” content—Gen Z venting about burnout

• Are TikTok’s viral 5-to-9 videos creating burnout?

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🪧 BRANDS

Ouch…. Warner Bros. Discovery’s rebrand from Max back to HBO Max hit turbulence on X.

The platform wouldn’t allow the account to switch back to its old handle, citing username and data-transfer restrictions.

More brand news this week: 👀

• Brands are ditching influencers for their in-house creators

• Dance routines and ‘tenniscore’: how Wimbledon is seeking new fans online

• How Unilever used AI to make soap go viral

• Glossier is expanding to TikTok Shop, joining brands like Fenty and The Ordinary in chasing Gen Z’s loyalty

• How Liquid Death went viral and is worth $1.4 Billion

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“This place – and all of these places – are a poison – a prison of utterly short form deep sounding nonsense attached to no one that ur brain will discard imaging its learning… The entire thing is a theatre… A shitty pale simulacra of a life.”

- Grimes returns to X but she is clearly NOT a fan of social media

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Also overheard this week: 👂

• "Grok was too compliant to user prompts… too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed."
  
  – Elon Musk offers an explanation for Grok’s Nazi bender

• “I have yet to meet someone in Meta-GenAI that truly enjoys being there.”
  
  – A departing Meta AI scientist is no fan of the place he’s leaving

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🏆 CREATING A BUZZ

TIME has unveiled its first-ever TIME100 Creators list

It highlights influencers like Kai Cenat, Alix Earle, Sean Evans, and Charli D’Amelio.

Creators were selected for impact, reach, and originality, and TIME used global polling and data from partner #paid to guide its picks.

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👀 MY FAV READS

Be careful whose life advice you listen to…

“Advice has become content – and algorithms are pushing the most extreme examples of it to the top”

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😮 WTF?!

Who might replace Linda Yaccarino as CEO of X?

MrBeast seemed to want it last time the job was available, and now he appears to be back on the Elon campaign trail…! Just watch those typos, Jimmy.

Also WTF this week: 👀

• A new study found extremists are using TikTok sounds to sneak Nazi ideology into memes

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🤦‍♂️ FAIL

Football star Mbappé has been slammed for posting an AI-altered photo on Instagram.

He posted a stunning bicycle kick photo—until fans noticed surreal crowd glitches. Were they used to hide empty seats at the Club World Cup?

Also:

• Instagram wrongly accused some users of breaching child sex abuse rules

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📲 NEW APPS

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is back dabbling in social with Bitchat, a WhatsApp messaging rival built on Bluetooth.

Although he only describes is as a weekend project for now…

Also new this week: 👀

• Meta Quest now has a standalone Zoom app for video calls in VR

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

Microsoft needs a Social Media Manager for Microsoft Learn. [Remote, USA]

More top social media jobs spotted this week 💼

• Eventbrite is hiring a Social Media Coordinator [Remote, USA]

• Great British Racing is looking for a Social Media Executive [London, UK]

• People’s Postcode Lottery is recruiting a Social Media Operations Executive [Edinburgh, UK]

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👌 PRO TIPS

Here’s how to make the most of TikTok’s Creator Search Insights…

More pro-tips worth checking out ✨

• Meta has dropped a fresh six-page Reels Ads Guide packed with performance tips.

• How brands can shift their focus from public engagement to private messaging

• TikTok has published a new guide for home decor marketers

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

200 MILLION +

– How many views on TikTok Wimbledon had hit, halfway through its 2025 tournament

Even more social stats: 📈

• STITCHED UP: Disney’s Lilo & Stitch remake was viewed over 200,000 times illegally on YouTube. Adalytics uncovered 250M+ views across thousands of pirated videos, some monetised with ads

• SELF CARE: 40% of 12–15-year-olds now take deliberate breaks—an 18% jump since 2022

• PINNED UP: Pilates outfits are up 125%, nail art designs up 115%, and climbing aesthetics up 95% in Pinterest's new Men’s Trend Report

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📈 CHARTED

Social media platform popularity among US teens

More charted social insights spotted: 👀.

• THREADING UP: Threads is closing in on Elon Musk’s X

• ACTUAL INTELLIGENCE: Mark Zuckerberg’s AI dream team at a glance

• FLIPPING THE BIRD: How left-wing Twitter became right-wing X

• MARKETER PAIN: Measuring ROI is still influencer marketing’s biggest pain point

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Meta has been hit with a formal antitrust complaint in France for allegedly abusing its dominance in online ads. [Bloomberg $$$]

• TikTok is ending support for major Canadian cultural events due to a federal shutdown order. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Snapchat has tapped American Eagle as a Snap Map ad partner ahead of back-to-school season. [Modern Retail]

• Social media incentivised spread of Southport misinformation, British MPs say. [The Guardian]

• YouTube creators and eSafety commissioner at odds over whether to exclude platform from under-16 ban. [The Guardian]

• Yahoo is taking cues from platforms as it offers more editorial control to creators. [DigiDay $$$]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

Geekout’s pick of the best longer reads to sink into over the weekend:

How Casey Neistat's artful portrayal of New York City made his daily vlog into one of YouTube's most influential series….

More great weekend reads:

• YouTube to Hollywood: We are going to eat you

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😳 AND FINALLY…

Do you find yourself using ChatGPT a bit too much?

Reddit is become the place people turn to help them break their AI chatbot addiction…

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

And that’s a wrap on one helluva week in social media land.

I’m heading off to get some urgently needed sleep. I’ve been averaging five hours per night this past week.

This weekend couldn’t be less VIP. I will be mostly pulling weeds in the garden…

…And cleaning out my garage. 😏

The contrast to last weekend is brutal! 😆

Goodbye, geeks!

P.S. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant

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