Hello, geeks!
What a week to be Mark Zuckerberg.
His own shareholders are suing him. Publishers kicked up such a fuss about Meta scraping their sites that it had to hit pause.
And Adam Mosseri, who spent years telling us longform video wasn’t a priority, just launched 90-minute horizontal videos on Instagram.
Sideways. On your phone. For an hour and a half.
Nothing says “we’re not copying YouTube” quite like copying YouTube.
Reddit, meanwhile, is getting a ‘For You’ feed. Because the world was clearly running short of those.
Elon promised Grok would make a full-length AI movie of The Odyssey this year. We got seven minutes. Of slop.
To be fair, delivering anything in the same year he promised it is a personal best for Elon.
And X has added a giant hand pointing at its Promote button. Subtle. Really subtle.
Coming up in this week’s Geekout…
📺 Instagram now does 90-minute videos. Watch out, YouTube
😡 Meta shareholders are suing Zuck. Even they’ve had enough
👀 Reddit is getting a ‘For You’ feed. Wonder where they got that idea
⏪ Meta just hit pause on scraping publishers. Funny what a backlash does
🛂 Ofcom wants UK teens to prove their age. ID at the ready
🐧 Meta made an AI pet for kids. What could go wrong?
But before we get into it...
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🔥 TOP STORY: Instagram declares war on YouTube with horizontal ‘Features’ up to 90 minutes long
Watch out, YouTube: Instagram goes from short-form to 90-minute videos
TechCrunch • Amanda Silberling
Meta shareholders are suing Zuckerberg to block his billionaire-tax share plan [REVOLTING]
Reddit is adding a ‘For You’ feed of algorithm-picked posts and communities, next to a new Following feed [COPYING]
Meta delays controversial website-scraping terms after publisher backlash, promises “full consultation” [BACKPEDALLING]
Ofcom sets out age check plans for the UK’s teen social media ban [ID-CHECKING]
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Instagram goes long. Can it out-YouTube YouTube?
Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal videos in the US and Brazil. It’s a straight swing at YouTube. Problem is, there’s no ad revenue share, so creators have zero reason to jump ship. Yet…..
Looking back to its launch in 2010, it’s hard to believe what Instagram has become.
What started as a simple but compelling place to make relatively low-res smartphone photos look better with a filter has become a media behemoth: one that now wants to host 90-minute-long video epics.
The move makes sense if you’re Adam Mosseri. You’ve got to keep users locked into Instagram. YouTube has gone short with Shorts, so you’ve got to go long.
Mosseri says the plan is to make shortform and longform video “symbiotic.” The Verge gives the example of podcasts or comedy specials that can be both long videos and broken up into shorter ones.
Features, as the long videos are called, is only a limited test right now in the US and Brazil, but you can expect Meta to go big on it fast if it’s a hit.
The launch of Features caused a minor storm when it emerged that Instagram wouldn’t be doing an ad revenue share deal with creators. Why should they move away from YouTube if they can’t make money?
Mosseri explained it’s because Instagram’s existing, small revenue-sharing programme makes a loss overall. They must surely be doing it wrong if that’s the case!
Either way, it emerged that Instagram is providing some financial incentives to longform creators to adopt Features.
Selected YouTubers have reportedly received $50K–$500K offers to post videos on Features. The deals aren't exclusive; Instagram simply asks for same-day posting alongside YouTube.
Meta has confirmed it is paying some creators directly but won't disclose individual deal terms.
This is fine to kickstart Features, but it won’t be sustainable. If he wants longform creators to see Instagram as equal to YouTube, Adam Mosseri is going to have to figure out how to make payouts profitable.
Time to break out the spreadsheets, Adam!
Meta
/ Facebook
Facebook’s Creator Dashboard now tracks your activity with rings [Credit: @jonahmanzano]
Facebook Creator Dashboard now shows coloured rings to track your posts, stories, and audience reception
Meta’s new $25 billion stock sale to raise money for AI development ended five times oversubscribed
Meta’s controversial website-scraping terms have led to pushback from the US Senate and a Norwegian lawsuit
Meta considered turning academics against its critic Jonathan Haidt via a “whisper campaign” to discredit him
Meta has expanded parent alerts across Facebook and its AI chats
Meta has developed an AI system designed to help identify potential school shootings
Meta is slowing down its VR headset upgrade cycle as Quest sales decline
Meta now lets advertisers see which parts of their ads perform best
Messenger links are being added to some Google Business Profiles
__________
Instagram
Instagram’s Halloween features for Notes, Instants and Stories [Credit: Instagram]
Instagram has added Halloween features for Stories, Notes, and Instants
Instagram is expanding its ‘Series’ test internationally, with a US test planned by early 2027, and is testing recommended live streams
Instagram now shows how many new Instants you haven’t seen yet
Instagram has revealed the 25 winners of its 2026 Rings creator awards
Instagram appears to be working on limiting the number of links you can add to your bio, with more links available to Meta One subscribers
Instagram Edits has added Halloween effects, bulk editing of captions, extra loudness for clips, and more
Instagram Edits has launched for iPhone Duo, while a desktop version is in testing
Instagram Edits’ paid subscription has been spotted live in Australia
…this means you can now pay for Edits storage of between 200GB and a whopping 6TB
__________
Threads
Threads is working on collab posts [Credit: @alex193a]
Threads is working on collab posts
Threads is testing ‘Threads Friends’, letting users in Ireland, Italy, and Japan share posts with up to 50 people
Threads is testing the ability to customise the like button on your posts in South Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia
Threads has added Halloween-themed sound effects when you pull to refresh, and a bunch of non-spooky sound options too
Threads is working on the ability to limit replies to community members only
Threads has added a new ‘Live Chats’ filter for DMs, letting you see active and ended live chats
Threads now lets you choose whether to show or hide your Live Chat card on your profile
__________
WhatsApp
WhatsApp is making busy group chats easier to catch up on [Credit: WhatsApp]
WhatsApp has added four ways to make group chats easier to catch up on
WhatsApp has added payment settings to code, hinting at an expansion of its payment feature beyond India, Brazil, Singapore and Mexico
WhatsApp is testing profile cover photos
WhatsApp is building a media hub for iOS, where all photos, videos, and links you receive can be browsed in one place
WhatsApp is developing new tools for managing huge Communities
WhatsApp is rolling out a new filter that shows every group or Community chat with a pending mention or reply
WhatsApp is redesigning the chat backup screen with a cleaner look and more detailed settings
__________
X / Twitter
X’s new ‘Videos for You’ section in the feed [Credit: @theahmedghanem]
X has added a ‘Videos for You’ section in the feed, highlighting recommended videos like Instagram Reels recommendations
xAI is being sued by a UK MP who says Grok generated sexualised images of her
X has appointed a new head of product. Peter Sellis used to work at Ustream, Snap, Discord, and Microsoft
X has launched an invite-only Video Kickstart Bonus targeting vertical video creators
X now lets you long-press a photo and select ‘Post photo’ to re-share it with credit
X now displays carousel posts in the ‘Media’ tab on X Search
__________
YouTube
/
TikTok
YouTube is betting on bingeable Shorts Series [Credit: YouTube]
YouTube has announced Shorts Series so users can binge ‘seasons’ of short-form videos
YouTube is testing a $20 payout threshold for creators, down from the usual $100 minimum
YouTube videos could soon look better while using less bandwidth, thanks to a new ‘AV2’ codec
YouTube will give some channels flagged for spam 30 days to fix problems before they’re removed
YouTube is testing a way for channels hit with spam violations to fix or delete the offending videos instead of losing their channel
TikTok has added Must Eat in the US, a restaurant guide for NYC, LA and the Bay Area drawing on 40M+ TikTok posts, reviews and comments
TikTok’s Creatorverse Incubator has spawned 10 original TV shows, which will stream on Tubi
TikTok is introducing an ‘Add Background’ option, letting you customise your profile with a background
TikTok is featuring a limited-time Street Fighter Mission Challenge, running until 10 November
__________
LinkedIn
/Reddit
/Discord
LinkedIn’s icons, before and after its revamp [Credit: @lindseygamble_]
LinkedIn has revamped icons across its platform, with a cleaner and more subtle look
LinkedIn is testing a simpler menu with fewer categories and longer post previews in the feed
Reddit is moving towards a logged-in-only experience. It will test restrictions for logged-out users in some non-US markets in Q4
Snap has settled a decade-long lawsuit over Snapchat’s speed filter
Discord is making public server chats searchable on the web (it’s off by default in the UK and EU, and admins can opt out elsewhere)
Bluesky is testing a new UI for the Notifications tab
Bluesky has blocked links to a leaked archive containing records on 41,000+ Homeland Security employees and contractors
Twitch is launching Recaps Spotlight, highlighting selected streamers on Instagram and YouTube for free
Meta has quietly launched a new app for kids called Waddle World, an AI-powered virtual pet that remembers your life.
• 🎙️ Chat to your pet about your day
• 🧠 It remembers things you tell it
• 📝 It turns conversations into illustrated journal entries
• 💌 It sends personalised weekly postcards
• 🎮 You can feed it, play games and look after it
Basically, it’s Tamagotchi meets ChatGPT. But currently it’s only available in the Philippines on iOS and Android.
Yet another cute way to get kids to trust AI…?
__________
Meta has also quietly launched an AI fashion app! 👗
Style Sketch connects to Facebook and Instagram to automatically build a virtual wardrobe from photos you’ve already posted.
• 👕 It creates outfits using clothes you own
• 🪞 AI try-ons are matched to your body
• ☀️ It offers weather-based outfit suggestions
• ✈️ It plans outfits and packing for trips
• 👀 You can share looks with friends
__________
Also spotted this week…
Meta’s Forum app in the US now includes enhanced Facebook Group admin features, powered by AI
Change.org can now turn your TikTok rant into an actual petition. Paste a TikTok link and AI can automatically draft a local petition from it
CapCut is working on direct integration with ChatGPT
Canva has introduced Brush, a new AI design tool that maintains layers rather than flattening everything
Meta has a new ad ranking system built on LLMs
Meta’s MCP can now create and configure developer apps, including WhatsApp business messaging setup and more
Meta has built an AI tool that automatically hunts down pirated sports streams
Apple is putting OpenAI-powered assistants directly inside its creator apps like Logic Pro and Pixelmator Pro, as well as its productivity apps
Google parent company Alphabet turned in its results this week, and that meant we got an update on YouTube…
It grew 9%. But Wall Street wanted more
Analysts expected $11.43bn, leaving YouTube short of their quarterly revenue forecast
Advertising growth slowed from 13% in Q2, despite revenue still rising
Alphabet says YouTube’s subscription business is growing faster than its advertising business
And YouTube’s next big screen is already paying off:
Living-room viewing generated over one-third of YouTube’s advertising revenue this quarter
YouTube Music and Premium now exceed 150 million subscribers globally, including trials
That compares with 125 million subscribers disclosed back in March 2025
Nielsen estimates put YouTube’s US TV viewing share around twice Netflix’s in August
Microsoft’s latest earnings also lifted the lid on LinkedIn…
Creator-led ads grew 63% year on year, and paid video ads rose 25%
Time spent engaging with feed content rose over 15%
It now has 1.4 billion+ members, but that’s sign-ups, not active users
Established creators posting daily grew 13%, six times faster than everyone else
__________
Over at Pinterest, Q3 was a game of two halves. More users, less profit…
Monthly users hit a record 661 million, up 21 million since Q2
Gen Z now makes up 57% of its audience
Revenue rose 12% year on year to $1.17bn
But net income fell 77% to $21.5m
And Reddit had a bumper quarter, with one big catch. Ad boom, US audience slips…
Revenue surged 53% to $895m, with $847m of that from ads
Global daily users hit 130.3 million, up 12% year on year
But US daily users fell 2% to 50.7 million
Search referrals dropped by over 1 million a week in October, and its CEO blames Google’s AI search
Its fix? Shifting to a logged-in experience, starting with login tests in some non-US markets
__________
__________
X has confused users this week with a giant hand pointing at its Promote button in the post composer 😳
Needless to say, plenty of people were baffled by it, and a few were impressed…
__________
__________
__________
Also viral this week:
TikTok's latest AI photo trend is basically reverse catfishing yourself
Mozilla’s Firefox has reunited some of the internet's original meme royalty 😂
Its new campaign brings back Overly Attached Girlfriend, Numa Numa Guy, and Dancing Matt
Annoying Orange also returns to remind us what peak internet culture looked like
Firefox is pitching itself as an alternative to today's tracking-heavy, Big Tech-dominated web
The campaign even takes a swipe at “forced AI features” becoming increasingly unavoidable online
__________
More brand news and views:
Disney is bringing 20+ brands to TikTok Shop for the holidays
How brands are getting weird to win Gen Z’s attention
Lush ditched paid social. Its revenue still grew 9.4% in 2025
Influencer marketing is booming. Running campaigns is still messy. Finding talent and balancing brand requirements with creator freedom are among the marketer pain points
Remember when Adam Mosseri said longform video wasn’t a priority?
Yeah, about that.
Here he tells Colin and Samir why Instagram changed its mind, plus what actually drives reach right now: sends, carousels and watch time.
"We spend more money than we make back by a long shot"
__________
Also quoted this week:
“It’s a bit of a tricky form factor”
– Adam Mosseri on why Instagram currently looks janky on iPhone Duo
__________
“It’s not only getting worse, it’s going to continue to get worse. I think we’re going to see more frustration and anger, some of it founded, some of it unfounded, over the next couple of years, and that’s going to make it hard for a lot of people, not just in the industry.”
– Adam Mosseri thinks the AI backlash is only getting started
This $129 gadget automatically kills your bedtime doomscrolling.
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Showing your sources could make people trust your videos more
Proof News and Sciences Po tested news labels with 2,000 US adults watching short-form videos.
Listing sources in video descriptions increased perceived trust, transparency and willingness to share
Labels outlining newsroom standards also improved trust metrics for general news videos
A separate test of 1,600 adults found fewer significant effects for labels on text articles.
“Lore” has been crowned social media's word of 2026 👑
Sprout Social analysed public posts to find the words shaping online culture:
Lore: 10M+ mentions, as users embraced deeper stories, history + context
Slop: 8.8M mentions, driven by backlash against mass-produced, low-quality AI content
Niche: 4.2M mentions, reflecting growing interest in smaller communities + shared interests
Maxxing: 3.5M mentions, as optimisation culture pushed further into the mainstream
__________
More WTF this week:
Elon Musk said Grok would create a full-length movie version of The Odyssey this year. Just seven minutes of bland slop have emerged so far
One of Reddit’s open-source communities just banned AI projects, going so far as to ban non-English language users because mods can’t tell the difference between AI-generated text and AI-translated text
Meta pulled a Muse ad that promoted the AI agent’s ability to track your Instagram unfollows
Meta has been charging non-profits and government entities for posting more than two links per month…
…even though they’re supposed to be exempt from the money-grabbing test.
Just when you thought that charging for links was bad enough…
Stop fiddling with your ad settings after launch!
Meta says advertisers need to stop tweaking campaigns too quickly. Constant campaign changes can prevent Meta's systems gathering data to optimise.
Just chill and let the data accumulate for a bit…
__________
Also this week:
X says its best-performing ads contain just 50–100 characters, roughly one sentence
TikTok has published a playbook outlining the value of its high-end ad options
YouTube has shared five ways media companies can grow audiences and revenue
$95 BILLION
__________
More social stats:
FAKE OUT: TikTok says 14.6 million fake accounts and 781.4 million fake followers were removed between April and June this year
VOTING: 55% of US social media users say a post informed or changed their opinion on who to vote for
ROBO-DATING: Just over half of Gen Z dating app users in the US are comfortable using AI to draft replies or keep chats going, versus 70% of millennials
"Meta’s smart glasses have increasingly been implicated in disturbing invasions of users’ and bystanders’ privacy," a letter sent to Meta from Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey says.
__________
Also spotted this week…
Google and Meta are pushing back against ICE demands for user data. [Wall Street Journal $$$]
Meta is acquiring AI analytics startup Sundial, which uses AI to turn natural-language questions into actionable data insights. [The Verge]
Australia's algorithm opt-out plan is getting pushback. [Social Media Today]
The EU has told members to pause draft social media bans for a year while the bloc’s Kids Act remains unfinished. [Politico]
California’s billionaire-tax battle is hiring influencers. [Los Angeles Times]
EU lawmakers have slammed new border force powers to surveil social media. [Politico]
Meta has lost an appeal in France over news-publisher payments. [PPC Land]
TikTok US is reportedly seeking more computing capacity, looking to secure 4GW by the early 2030s. [CNBC]
Australia’s Defence officials wanted fewer Senate clips shared online. [The Guardian]
A startup called SuperMe has raised $20M to turn real experts' knowledge into AI advisers. [TechCrunch]
Meta says its expanded AI processing capacity is driving ad results. [Social Media Today]
Meta is funding AI research into heart failure, dementia and infant care. [Meta Newsroom]
Pinterest is opening more of its ad inventory to programmatic buyers. [Pinterest Newsroom]
New features and tests:
LinkedIn has rebranded its Economic Graph as LinkedIn Pulse, repositioning its labour-market data hub as a resource for understanding how work is changing. [Social Media Today]
Threads has added a ‘Sound’ setting for turning on and off its new feed refresh sounds. [@oncescuradu]
Instagram Instants is adding small previews of Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets in its settings. [@theahmedghanem]
Meta is removing ad placement controls for four campaign types. [Jon Loomer]
WhatsApp is working on improving the feature that will let users migrate their channels to the Chats tab. [WABetaInfo]
WhatsApp is redesigning its Android Settings menu. [WABetaInfo]
TikTok has added a new shortcut to TikTok Ads Manager on iOS. [@oncescuradu]
Bluesky’s AT Protocol team is working on allowing online groups to work across different apps. [ATProto]
Beehiiv is bringing programmatic ads to podcasts. [AdExchanger]
“MrBeast, Ms. Rachel and the world’s top creators rely on these power players to propel their careers beyond phone screens…”
__________
Also worth a read:
The simple joy of a social network most people forgot about years ago: Remember Foursquare’s Swarm?
Meta’s Muse marks the ‘cutification’ era of AI agents
The latest university side hustle? Influencing, obviously
These could be the new emojis coming to your phone next 👀
Unicode's first draft for Emoji 19.0 includes just five:
Vulture
Ornate Bottle
Orchid
Inukshuk
Eyes Looking Right
They're only draft concepts for now, with approval expected in September 2027.
If all five survive, it'll be the smallest new emoji release ever. Clearly we've finally run out of things. 😂
That’s a wrap for this week, folks.
Right, I’m off to the Royal Albert Hall tonight for Matilda in Concert. It’s the film on a giant screen, with a full orchestra playing the score live and Danny DeVito himself narrating.
My teenage daughter is beyond excited, because it’s her all-time favourite childhood film. I’m mostly excited that a teenager has agreed to be seen in public with her dad on a Friday night.
DeVito also played Matilda’s dad, Harry Wormwood, in the 1996 movie. Harry is a man who thinks books are pointless and the telly is all anyone needs. Hand that man a 90-minute Instagram video and Mosseri’s got his first superfan.
Also, pretty sure this is how Zuck opened his last shareholder meeting:
Have a spooky weekend!
Goodbye, geeks!
P.S. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant
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