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Hello, geeks!

Welcome to an AI super-stuffed edition of Geekout.

But before we kick things off this week…

Sprout Social analysed 50 social media job descriptions. 💼

The industry average salaries are WILD in 2024! 😮

Are you being paid what you deserve? ✨» Check here «✨

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Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are bringing the swagger and drama (again) this week.

Zuck has upped his chain game ⛓️ 

He got an "epic new chain" from rapper T-Pain and showed it off using Meta's new video effects.

"The other one wasn't quite big enough, so this definitely is a vibe," Zuck joked while donning the new large chain.

Also… Zuck dropped the F-bomb during an interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Zuck. You changed, bro! 🤬 😎

Meanwhile…

Elon Musk says a throwdown with Mark Zuckerberg would be a 'short fight' because Zuck is a 'little fella' 🙄 

The money I would pay to see these two finally get in the ring and watch Zuck spark Musk out. 🥊

And finally…

The UK Government's Communication Service was reportedly spending "hundreds of millions of pounds" on filming content for Conservative ministers’ social media channels.

Did they hire Martin Scorsese as director for their TikToks?! WTF! 😮

Aaaaannnnnnyway… Let’s get into it. Here’s EVERYTHING you need to know this week.

The hottest headlines in social coming up next 🔥👇

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. Elon Musk shared a doctored Harris campaign video on X without labelling it as fake [DEEP-FAKING]

3. X faced heat over opting users into having their data used to train AI [HARVESTING]

4. U.S. Senate passed landmark bills to protect kids online [LAWMAKING]

5. Meta scraped its celebrity AI chatbots that fell flat with users [UNENGAGING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

Elon doesn’t mind breaking his own terms of service

It was with some relief that commentators noted that the recent UK general election was pretty much free of deep fakes. Likewise the earlier Indian elections.

For all the talk of how deepfakes would confuse voters and cause chaos, AI-manipulated video seems to have been largely used responsibly. The US election might not be so lucky.

This week, Trump-supporting X owner Elon Musk did something sadly not surprising at all: he shared a video of Kamala Harris with AI-manipulated audio. While the original account that shared the video made clear it was a parody, Musk–with his 192.8 million followers–did not.

It’s unclear what effect such videos have beyond the noisy cut and thrust of online echo chambers, but Musk, with his influence clearly has no qualms about potentially confusing the electorate if it helps his chosen candidate.

But even if we do see more high-profile AI-manipulated fake videos in the run up to November’s polling day, bad old-fashioned misinformation is still far more effective.

This week saw protests and riots around England following the murder of three children in Southport. The unrest was fuelled by misinformation from the far-right and social media, including a network of newly-created TikTok accounts.

While Sky News, which found the accounts, doesn’t know who created them, it notes: “it appears that a single person or group is using deceptive tactics to replicate the riot in Southport in multiple cities.”

You don’t need deepfakes when a simple lie and some emotional manipulation can help get people out fighting in the streets.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

Everything else worth knowing about from the past seven days…

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💬 YOU CAN QUOTE ME ON THAT

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

I gave a brief comment to The Times about Meta’s shift in focus for AI chatbots. 👇

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😆 LOL

The Instagram feature social media managers want… but will never have 😁

I feel seen, Josh…

‘brat summer’ update…

The pain is real…

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📈 MEMES

‘JD Vance had sex with a couch’ is almost certainly NOT true, but it’s the kind of folklore people love to share. It was all over social media this week…

📈 TRENDING

What is the ‘vabbing’ viral TikTok trend all about?

You might regret wanting to know about this one. 😳

It probably doesn’t work but it is weird… and gross. 🤢 

Tapping through isn’t for the faint hearted 👇

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🌡️ VIRAL

“Threads’ vibe is chill!” Mindy Kaling raised eyebrows over the past week after posting a weird video about how she wanted to “start a conversation” on the platform.

She then disappeared, leading to her ‘post and ghost’ engagement-bait first Thread to get trolled to death… before finally returning to engage with the comments 3 days later.

Questions were asked whether it was a paid Threads partnership. Probably, but Meta refused to answer questions…

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“Zuck is a little fella, so that would be a short fight lol”

– Elon Musk can’t let it go when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg

• “I think Mark is pretty buff” – Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang traded compliments, and jackets, with Mark Zuckerberg this week.

• “Nah, f**k that" – Mark Zuckerberg got f**king excited about AI

• “When Jimmy was a teenager he acted like many kids and used inappropriate language while trying to be funny” – A spokesperson tries to get MrBeast out of a row over racist remarks he made in 2017

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👀 MY FAV READS

This dude fessed up to making over $600,000 a MONTH from holding Instagram accounts hostage. 😮

“The case of Unlocked4Life, who outed himself on Adam-22's No Jumper podcast, shows how Instagram account scammers have escalated to violence and intimidation too.”

Also:

• X CEO Linda Yaccarino contends with pitfalls of sharing power with Elon Musk

• Elon Musk has his own clean-up crew at X: Linda Yaccarino

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😮 WTF?!

“Shitposting-style tattoos are the latest trend, birthed from a chronically digital upbringing that has landed Gen Z with a meta-ironic internet persona and an absurdist, self-referential style of humour”

Also in must-read WTF news this week:

• TikTok’s algorithm is highly sensitive – and could send you down a hate-filled rabbit hole before you know it

• How Meta's copyright tool is being exploited in the Middle East by extortionists

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🤦 FAIL

“Meta says it first blocked its AI from answering questions about the shooting but removed the restriction after people noticed.”

Also:

• Bumble and Hinge allowed stalkers to pinpoint users’ locations down to 2 meters, researchers say

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🪦 RIP

Social media features heading for the graveyard:

Looks like it’s the end of the line for what was Twitter’s native Mac app:

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out:

• The New York Times is looking for a Community Engagement Manager for Games. [New York City, NY, USA]

• Harris for President, the Kamala Harris campaign, is hiring for a number of roles including vertical video production and rapid response comms amplification. [Various locations, USA]

• NHS Blood and Transplant needs a Social Media Officer. [London, UK]

• British Transport Police are looking for Digital and Social Media Manager. [Birmingham, UK]

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👌 SOCIAL PRO TIPS

Feeling out of touch? Brush up on how ‘the yoof’ are using TikTok right now.

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

The newest social media A.I. features and updates spotted:

• Instagram broadcast channels have an 'Imagine' sticker feature

• Instagram is rolling out AI Studio to let you create an AI version of yourself

• Instagram seems to be adding Meta AI prompts in the feed

• WhatsApp is rolling out a feature to share voice messages with Meta AI

• Meta’s latest video AI model provides a breakthrough in computer vision

• Meta is developing ‘Business AIs’ to handle transactional engagement

• You can now use your voice to interact with Meta AI on Messenger

• Facebook started rolling out Meta AI in post comments to more users

• TikTok is throwing $20 million a month at OpenAI via Microsoft

• TikTok plans to use AI to bolster shopping on its platforms

• Reddit has acquired AI adtech startup Memorable in a deal worth around $40 million

• Canva has acquired startup Leonardo.ai to boost its generative AI efforts

• Elon Musk’s xAI has considered buying Character AI

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⚖️ COURT OUT

Noteworthy social media lawsuits and court settlements in the news:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Don Lemon is suing over the multi-million dollar X show that never happened because Elon had a tantrum. 🤡

Also:

• LinkedIn agreed to pay $6.625 million to settle advertisers' lawsuit over alleged overcharges

• Meta will pay $1.4 billion to settle Texas facial recognition data lawsuit

• Russia fined TikTok and Google over banned content

💰 SOCIAL QUARTERLIES

It’s been a big week for social media financial results…

Meta's Q2 results revealed Increases in users and revenue 📊 

✨ Highlights ✨

• Meta’s “Family Daily Active People” increased to 3.27 billion, up 7%

• Meta added 30 million more users across its apps

• ⁠⁠Meta brought in $39.07 billion in revenue, up 22%

• Total ad impressions delivered across its apps increased by 10%

• The average price per ad rose by 10%

• Meta lost another $4.5 billion in its Reality Labs VR division

• Meta’s total costs and expenses rose 7% to $24.22 billion

• 👥 Meta’s AR/VR quarterly revenue growth continues as Quest 3 "outpacing our expectations"

• 💼 LinkedIn reported 10% rise in revenue and ‘Record Levels’ of engagement. LinkedIn also revealed video is now the platform’s fastest-growing content type with video uploads up 34% YoY.

• 📍 Pinterest’s shares fell after a revenue warning. Revenue rose 21% to $854 million. And the platform now has 522 million MAUs, up 12% from a year ago

• 👻 Snap’s revenue hit $1.24 billion, up 16% from $1.07 billion a year ago. Snapchat+ now has 11 million subscribers. And Snapchat MAUs hit 850 million.

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

200 Million

– Threads boss Adam Mosseri confirmed the platform has hit another monthly active users milestone this week

• Livestreaming content has been watched for 8.5 billion hours between April 1-June 30

• The number of Gen Z Facebook users in the US is expected to jump from 49% (33.9 million users) in 2024 to 56.9% (40.5 million users) in 2028

• 55% of Gen Z have made an online purchase while browsing social media

• LinkedIn video uploads have grown 34% in the past year

• LinkedIn reported a 45% increase in video creation.

• Internal X docs revealed in Q2 2024, the company earned $114 million in revenue in the U.S, a 25% decline from Q1 and a 53% decline vs. 2023

• X shared stats about Olympics engagement on the platform

• YouTube says more than 35 billion hours of sports content was viewed on the platform in the past year, a 45% increase on the previous year

• Twitch generated $2 billion in revenue in 2023

• Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will need 10x more computing power to train Llama 4 than Llama 3

📈 CHARTED

How video consumption is changing in 2024:

• TV watching vs TikTok watch time among US adults

• Less than half of young people in UK watch live television, according to Ofcom

• 5 charts that demonstrate YouTube’s reach dominance for ad spend, users, and Gen Z

• Influencer marketing spending will increase to $8.14 billion this year and $9.29 billion in 2025, Emarketer predicts.

• The most loved and hated social media and messaging apps in every country

• Meta’s AR/VR quarterly revenue growth continues as Quest 3 "outpacing our expectations"

• 5 charts that reveal how YouTube is beating Netflix in 2024

• Women are 9% more likely than men to make a purchase after watching a TikTok video (31% vs. 22%)

• Trump may be a star on TikTok but Republicans aren't following his lead

• Adobe and Canva are losing users to ByteDance’s CapCut — especially on TikTok

• How the 2024 US election is playing out on TikTok

• 55% of TikTok users say they’re more likely to trust brands when they hear about them from creators, compared to other ads in their feed.

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• Meta's copyright tool is being exploited in the Middle East by extortionists. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Turkey has blocked Instagram amid a Hamas ‘censorship’ row. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Meta says India is the largest market for Meta AI usage. [TechCrunch]

New features and tests:

Instagram:

• Instagram is testing a Notes tab for Reels. [@jaskaranainiz]

• Instagram’s broadcast channel feature appears to have an updated UI design. [@jonahmanzano]

Threads:

• You can now hide your Instagram badge on your Threads profile. [@jonahmanzano]

• Threads is testing a new floating action button and a new search UI. [@oncescuradu]

WhatsApp:

• WhatsApp is rolling out a feature to manage multiple stickers in bulk. [WABetaInfo]

• Google Ads now lets you set up ‘Click-To WhatsApp’ message assets. [Search Engine Roundtable]

The rest: Creator Studio / Adtech / Quest and more:

• Meta Business Suite now allows users to edit their Stories. [@oncescuradu]

• Quest 3 can pair to the Meta Ray-Ban glasses to privately download videos and photos anywhere. [Upload VR]

• Meta Quest’s v68 update offers reduced latency, adaptive brightness, download improvements and a layout app. [Upload VR]

• Meta has released a new audio ray tracing tool for more immersive soundscapes on Quest. [Upload VR]

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• ISpot.tv will provide cross-platform ad measurement with TikTok. [Broadcasting + Cable]

• The House of the Dragon season 2 finale was leaked on TikTok [Hollywood Reporter]

• TikTok is proving to be a great place to watch the Olympics [The Verge]

• TikTok plans new Australian data center for Asia Pacific growth [The Information $$$]

Insights to give you an edge at work:

• 20 top TikTok talent managers and agents helping creators build careers. [Business Insider]

New features and tests:

• TikTok has added extended community subscription options, for 3, 6, or 12 months. [@jonahmanzano]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are teaming up with publishers to sell ads in revenue-share deals. [The Information $$$]

• Twitch is still losing money, 10 years after Amazon bought it. [Wall Street Journal $$$]

• Twitch has lost 10% of market share to YouTube and Kick. [TubeFilter]

• Pinterest shares fell after it issued a warning about a slowdown in revenue growth. [Bloomberg $$$]

• Democrats in the US Senate are spearheading an effort to use online influencers to push policy initiatives. [Washington Post $$$]

• Snap has partnered with NBCUniversal, advertisers and top influencers on the ground in Paris to cover the Olympics. [Variety]

• The UK government has been urged to act over physical and online intimidation of candidates in the recent general election. [The Guardian]

• Reddit’s CEO has called out Microsoft’s Bing, Anthropic, and Perplexity for allegedly scraping the platform’s data without permission. [The Verge]

• Donald Trump’s Truth Social has reported a third straight month of audience decline. [The Guardian]

• US broadcaster NBC is sending more than two dozen social media stars to Paris to cover the Olympics. [Bloomberg $$$]

• The previous UK government's Communication Service was reportedly spending "hundreds of millions of pounds" on filming content for ministers’ social channels. [@MattNavarra]

• Malaysia now requires a regulatory license for social media platforms to fight cyber offences. [Reuters $$$]

• Channel 4 News in the UK has found success with its podcast by focusing on YouTube instead of audio platforms. [Press Gazette]

New features and tests:

• Discord on Xbox will soon let you watch your friends’ streams. [The Verge]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

Geekout’s pick of the best longer reads worth sinking into this weekend:

• Inside the “Big Weirdo” political strategy that Democrats are using to taunt Republicans

• Business is buzzing again for the meme makers of the left

• Facebook is banking on creators to entice Gen Z. Will it work?

• How YouTube took over our television screens

• TikTok is betting its future on ecommerce. Should it?

• Why brands are ditching celebs for influencers

• An asbestos lawyer’s new crusade: suing social media companies 

• Pinterest’s VP of retail talks shoppable content and its growing Gen Z audience

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😳 AND FINALLY…

I’m sure many Geekout readers have wanted a job at TikTok at some point. But just be glad you weren’t working at its global HQ in Singapore this week. 🤮

57 people ended up in hospital!

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

…And on that spicy XXX-rated endnote… You’ve completed this week’s Geekout. ✅

Your social media mind just gained +3 IQ pts 🙌🏻 [Time to ask for a salary raise?]

Let’s get us both outta here fast this week… I’m heading off to experience the Sidmouth Folk Festival. 🎶

Apparently it’s a big annual event in Devon. It’s no Glastonbury, but? 🤣

Have a great weekend,

Goodbye, fellow geek!

p.s. This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant