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Hello, geeks!

I can’t believe it… one of the internet’s oldest mysteries has been solved at last!

Before we go any further I should admit…. this isn’t Matt. I’ve locked him in my basement so I can take over this newsletter. 😈

Okay, no, not really… this is Martin SFP Bryant, and Matt is currently on a plane flying back from a speaking gig in Kosovo. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it next week!

• Matt and I have worked closely together on this newsletter since it launched four years ago. Throughout the week we compile all the news as it comes in, and then on Fridays we work a solid 5 or 6 hours to get it done and out to you.

• It’s all done remotely, with Matt usually at home near Cardiff in Wales, and me usually in a coffee shop in Manchester, northern England.

• Fun fact: Matt is a perfectionist. He really takes care that every last pixel of each week’s newsletter is exactly what you want. Adding the final polish can easily take a good 30 minutes, but I think it’s worth it.

• But today’s edition is all my words, so I hope those of you who skip the intro don’t notice too much difference!

There is of course lots to look at with the US election result, particularly how today’s social media isn’t really set up to provide good quality, real-time information when people really need it.

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. X touts record high usage on election day [GROWING]

3. Canada orders shutdown of TikTok offices (but won’t block the app) [CLOSING]

4. X rolls out controversial change to blocking [CHANGING]

5. YouTube lets Shorts creators request brand partnerships [PARTNERING]

Social media is exhausting. This could be the answer.

A counter-trend is emerging: while major platforms add AI features, LA startup Favs is betting on real human connection. They just launched in the App Store, and the app’s gaining traction.

Imagine Instagram Notes without the exhausting features: no algorithms, ads, influencers, or endless scrolling. Just your real friends.

Why check it out?

• BeReal proved simplicity resonates

• Notes is among Instagram's fastest-growing features

• 78% of U.S. Gen Z prefer private messaging over public posts

Gen Z might be tired of performing for strangers. Favs lets you post quick updates and send emojis directly to friends—a digital high-five without clutter.

Is Favs the answer to social media burnout? _[Ad]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

The social media fallout from a surprising US election

As the dust settles on a surprisingly swift US election, it’s worth looking at how social media fared… and what’s next.

The big loser this time was ‘For You’ feeds from the likes of Threads and TikTok. They’re great at giving you more of what you like, but when you end up with outdated information of voting results. They failed users.

And Harris supporters were NOT happy to see all the optimistic posts from the beginning of the day show up when they were busy grieving for her loss. It’s just a jarring experience.

Platforms have good reasons for promoting ‘For You’ feeds, but big events like elections show why they need to be more flexible to users’ information needs.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk was celebrating after his big bet on Trump paid off. We don’t know if the sheer amount of pro-Trump content showing up in users’ algorithmic feeds made a difference to the outcome, but his highly vocal support puts Musk in a strong position to help Trump shape the government as he chooses.

Musk has reportedly already been busy recommending SpaceX employees as government officials, and may get his promised ‘government efficiency’ role that could see him shape the regulation of his companies as he sees fit.

And while X is notorious for sharing dodgy-looking stats about its own performance, it’s easy to believe it saw record usage on election day. While it has a For You feed, it’s still the best real-time information service there is, for those who can stomach to use it. It’s a shot in the arm for the platform’s relevance, at least in the short term.

What's more:

• Journalists might feel they need to stick around on X if it’s closely aligned with the incoming President, even if charities and non-profits in the UK aren’t keen on the Trump association and are reportedly dropping the platform.

• Musk will also be happy that Trump’s win will test the EU’s attempts to keep X in check.

• As for the other big tech bosses, they’ve been busy ass-kissing Trump. That man likes nothing better than a sycophant, and they know it.

• Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy of playing it safe with Trump helped him and Meta stay out of Trump’s targets over the election period.

• While Trump threatened to put Zuckerberg in jail a few months ago, Zuck will have calculated that that’s unlikely to happen. What he’ll hope is that by not appearing biased, Meta will have pleased everyone just enough to be allowed to quietly get on with its business.

As for TikTok? Trump might have appeared to change his mind on a ban in recent times, but it’s written into law that TikTok must be sold to a US company by 19 January, the day before Trump moves into the White House. Joe Biden might extend TikTok’s deadline, which would buy some time.

Very much NOT wanting to sell to a US company, and with no obvious buyer in the wings anyway, I imagine TikTok execs are reaching out to the Trump team to see what their options are.

But with legal experts doubtful there’s a route forward, TikTok might have to hope that some of Trump’s ‘I’ll do what I want, whatever the rules say’ approach goes in their favour.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

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

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

When Matt’s quoted in the news, you’ll find it here:

Matt spoke to Fast Company about whether X helped Trump win the election 

Also:

• Matt talked to The Information about how Threads is catching up with X

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😆 LOL

Social teams in US election week…

I actually quite like this idea…

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📈 MEMES

Take That’s Gary Barlow posted a family photo in which his son looks HUGE.

He’s apparently just a bit taller than the rest of them, but ‘Gary Barlow’s massive son’ is just too good meme fodder to resist…

Also:

• Peanut the Squirrel became a right-wing martyr in a final election push from the extremely online

• …and Elon Musk updated his ‘Let That Sink In’ meme with an Oval Office twist 🙄

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🌡️ VIRAL

“The 4B movement, from South Korea, calls for women to not date, marry, sleep with, or have children with men.

“Women are calling for the movement to take off in the US after Donald Trump won the election.”

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I’m a product of poverty and I’m a product of what happens when the system is set up against you….But you don’t know nothing about that. You don’t know not one thing about the American struggle….

…PS fix my algorithm”

– Cardi B hits back at Elon Musk after he calls her a puppet of the Kamala Harris campaign on X

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📲 NEW APPS

If you’re trying to move away from X, this app, which brings Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, and (highly niche platform loved by Jack Dorsey) Nostr together in one place might be worth a look…

Also:

• Daze, a messaging app aimed at teens, launched this week with nearly 200,000 people on its waitlist

• This service from Block Party fixes 223 privacy settings for you

• Ben Rubin, the co-creator of Houseparty and Meerkat, has launched a new group messaging platform that aims to solve the problems undermining trust in public conversation, using blockchain 🤔

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😮 WTF?!

Also:

• Bees reportedly stopped Meta from building a nuclear-powered AI data centre

• TikTok streamers made money by turning the Electoral College into unreal engagement bait

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🤦 FAIL

Elon Musk might have been successful in helping Trump to the White House, but not everything went according to plan…

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🏆 RECORD BREAKER

Sony got more comments than any other video ever on TikTok with the help of the platform’s Spotlight marketing feature for film and TV studios.

It let fans unlock special animations by commenting on a video. And a LOT of people wanted to try it…

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• Halfords is looking for a social media executive [Redditch, UK]

• Pet Lab Co. wants a social media content strategist [Remote, USA]

• ITV needs a social media manager [Hybrid, London, UK]

• The Salvation Army is hiring a senior social media manager [London, UK]

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👌 PRO TIPS

Maybe this is the nudge you need to get on the LinkedIn video train…

“A study finds LinkedIn video posts perform three times better than text content, especially when shared in the morning and in short formats.”

Also:

• Inside the strategy that grew Cristiano Ronaldo’s YouTube account to 1 million subscribers in 90 minutes

• X has shared holiday marketing tips

• LinkedIn has shared top tips for posting short videos for its new TikTok-like video feed

• TikTok has published a guide to post-Christmas marketing

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

84 million

– the number of hours of presidential news YouTube viewers guzzled on election day

• False or misleading claims by Elon Musk about the U.S. election have amassed 2 billion views on X this year, according to a report by Center for Countering Digital Hate.

• Threads has hit 275 million monthly active users, up by 75 million in three months

• ByteDance’s international revenue rose more than 60% to $17 billion in H1 2024, with TikTok accounting for most of it

• More than 60% of posts discussing election fraud on X on Tuesday focused on the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, according to an analysis of about 25,000 posts.

• Men were 12.5% more likely than women to see videos about Trump in a Washington Post investigation

• Google’s $8.9 billion in quarterly revenue from YouTube ads puts the it on track to match that of the entire broadcast advertising industry for 2024

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📈 CHARTED

• The declining brand value of Elon Musk's Twitter/X

• Instagram now has more users than Facebook in the EU

• Half of American teens spend 4+ hours on screens EVERY day

• The people using Reddit has nearly doubled in the past three years

• The majority of Reddit’s daily active users are lurkers who aren’t logged in

• Which country spends the most time on social media

• The top 100 most viewed US YouTube channels in October 2024

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• The US Supreme Court seems divided over Facebook’s bid to escape a securities fraud suit. [Washington Post $$$]

• Meta has lost its bid to appeal a UK class action over user data. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Meta could face defamation risks over AI-generated responses, Australian experts have warned. [The Guardian]

• Meta is opening a pop-up retail store for the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. [The Verge]

New features and tests:

Facebook:

• Facebook is testing some UI navigation tweaks. [@oncescuradu]

Instagram:

• Instagram has reduced the pinned comment limit from three to one for some users. [@jaskaransainiz]

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• Gen Zers are landing job interviews through TikTok. [Fast Company $$$]

• Music artists on TikTok are looking at music industry events to build their brand. [Adweek $$$]

• TikTok has expanded its TikTok for Good Launchpad programme to the UK [TikToK Newsroom]

New features and tests:

• TikTok is testing an anti-spam verification system for live videos. [@oncescuradu]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Pinterest stock plunged following weak Q4 revenue guidance. [CNBC]

• Election betting sites poured money into social media ads in the run up to 5 November. [NBC News]

• Australia’s ban of under-16s from social media is going to be tough to enforce. [The Guardian]

• Twitch has clarified the types of "Sensitive Social Issues" that require content labels. [TubeFilter]

• Meta and Pinterest both denied a French regulator’s request to evaluate their rights management tools. [TorrentFreak]

• A former Facebook lobbyist has joined the board of UK comms regulator Ofcom. [The Register]

New features and tests:

• Lemon8 has added a ‘share profile’ option. [Lindsey Gamble]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

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

“Teens have turned their penchant for edgy humor into a cascade of jokes about the disgraced hip-hop mogul.”

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😳 AND FINALLY…

Some people will do anything for content…

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

And that’s this week’s Geekout done.

You’re all caught up! ✅

Matt will be back next week… For now, I’m off to switch into weekend mode… and think about feeding Matt, who has now been locked up in my basement for nearly 18 hours…

…wait, did I say that out loud? I’m JOKING… aren’t I…?

– Martin