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Hello, geeks!

STOP! Before you go any further, whether TikTok shuts down in the US or not this weekend, you should definitely be smart and do this.

This week, Matt is NOT bringing you Geekout. He’s taking a well-earned break after a very busy week of travelling.

Instead, hello - I’m Martin, who regular readers will know creates this newsletter with Matt each week.

All the words in the newsletter are mine, so don’t blame Matt if you don’t like them 🙃 Or do.. he let me write them. 😀

It looks like Matt had a brilliant time in Dubai, speaking at the 1 Billion Followers Summit.

I’m sure he’ll fill you on the details next week, but here are some snapshots I nabbed from his Instagram Story highlights:

It’s been a crazy week in the news, with the ‘what will happen to TikTok’ question raging on (what will happen on Sunday? 😬) and the surprise (but probably very much temporary) rise of RedNote.

I’ll fill you in on all of that and more below. But first…

DON’T MISS THIS…

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. American #TikTokrefugees flood Chinese social media app RedNote ahead of ban [MOVING]

3. Meta disbands diversity team and says DEI has become ‘charged’ [DISBANDING]

4. Elon Musk is being sued by the SEC over the way he bought Twitter [SUING]

5. ‘Free Our Feeds’ campaign backed by Mark Ruffalo and others aims to billionaire-proof Bluesky’s tech [FREEING]

📩 Get this into your inbox…

At Geekout, we recommend this one…

TheFutureParty newsletter breaks down the future of entertainment, media, and creator economy with sharp, witty insights.

From fake food products going viral to Gen Z using TikTok to find jobs, their curated daily stories are relevant, informative, and fun to read – a great accompaniment to your weekly Geekout fix.

Join 260,000 creative professionals already staying smarter and ahead of the curve.

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT…

RedNote’s big week as TikTok squirms

At the start of the week, it looked like the wait for the US Supreme Court’s decision on TikTok would be the big story of the week, but events had other ideas.

Unless you spend a lot of time immersed in Chinese social media, you probably hadn’t heard of Xiaohongshu (AKA RedNote) before this week. But as rivals started courting users to shift over from TikTok, it became the surprise breakout star.

RedNote topped the US App Store and gained nearly 3 million new US users according to web data company SimilarWeb.

The sudden nature of the move allowed a remarkable cultural exchange to begin, with American and Chinese users swapping notes about their lives and countries.

Unsurprisingly, this alarmed Chinese censors and prompted RedNote into scrambling to hire English language moderators.

So should you join RedNote? Probably not.

Signing up to the platform is more of a meme than a genuine long-term shift. TikTok users simply wanted to show they had no qualms about using a Chinese-owned service, rubbing the fact in the noses of frustrated politicians.

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Things suddenly look hopeful for TikTok

With the Supreme Court expected to uphold the law that will force TikTok to shut down in the US THIS SUNDAY, things should be looking bleak for the app’s staff and users. And yet things look surprisingly hopeful.

Parent company ByteDance had said it was “planning for various scenarios” and signalled that it was preparing for an immediate shutoff on Sunday.

And yet various routes to saviour sprang up. Could Elon Musk broker a deal? Could it get an extension to seal a deal?

TikTok’s last minute lobbying push seems to be working, with many politicians joining Donald Trump in changing their tune to support the app’s continued life in the US.

A strong sign came with the news that TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew would be joining Zuck and Musk at Trump’s inauguration as invited guests on Monday. That’s a positive sign if ever I saw one.

Increasingly, it looks like whatever the Supreme Court says, it will be down to Trump whether TikTok shuts down for good.

As things stand right now, I wouldn’t expect the app to go dark in the US on Sunday. Or if it does, it’ll likely be back soon enough.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

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

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🤖 SOCIAL A.I.

The newest social media A.I. features spotted this week:

• WhatsApp is testing a Meta AI widget

• WhatsApp is testing replacing the Communities tab with one dedicated to AI chatbots

• LinkedIn has added new free AI tools for job hunters and recruiters

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😆 LOL

The sudden rise of RedNote was good for a laugh…

This one would be a recipe for disaster…

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📈 MEMES

TikTok users love to use humour in the face of adversity…

@_unsc_

#tiktokban

@lisandravcomedy

An open letter to my special Chinese Spy 💙 #tiktokban #politicstiktok #comedy

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“I cannot in good conscience serve as their lawyer any longer”

– Respected lawyer Mark Lemley dropped Meta as a client (in the middle of a case!) after the company embraced the Trump agenda

• Mark Zuckerberg claimed Meta’s fact checking programme was like "something out of 1984" when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

• Meta’s CTO says the introduction of its new content policies was ‘ham fisted’

• Snapchat is “asleep at the wheel” when it comes to suicide and self-harm content, children's charity the Molly Rose Foundation says.

• Will AI replace coders at Meta this year? "Probably in 2025, we at Meta as well as the other companies that are basically working on this are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of mid-level engineer that you have at your company that can write code," Zuck told Rogan.

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle say “ego or profit” is behind Meta's decision to scrap fact-checkers

• MrBeast claims billionaires are in his DMs looking to finance a TikTok purchase

• Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube’s battle to remove pirated content to defend his own company’s use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books

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👀 MY FAV READS

“We have simultaneously too much and too little information.”

Also:

• Meta is laying the narrative groundwork for Trump’s mass deportations

• Inside Meta’s race to beat OpenAI: “We need to learn how to build frontier and win this race”

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😮 WTF?! (Elon special)

“Will Elon Musk post more than 400 tweets this week? More than 800? Estimate correctly and you could wind up with a nice chunk of cash if you were to back your opinion by buying ‘shares’ on Polymarket. “

Also:

• Why is Elon Musk beefing with a Twitch streamer?

• Elon Musk is NOT happy he was apparently exposed as NOT being Adrian Dittman. X keeps asking the researchers to delete posts about the case

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🤦 FAIL

You’d think this would be an easy one for Meta to avoid…

Also:

• X's new parody labels won't fix its impersonation problem - because they’re voluntary

• Massive data breach exposes precise locations for users of many popular apps

• AI slop is still distorting news about the LA fires

• Meta admits it deleted links to decentralized Instagram competitor Pixelfed

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

• The BBC is recruiting a Senior Social Media Manager [Hybrid - Salford or London, UK]

• Mattel needs a YouTube Channel Coordinator [El Segundo, CA, USA]

• Verizon is looking for a Community Manager Brand Social [Hybrid - New York City, NY, USA]

• E.ON is hiring a Digital Content and Social Media Manager [Nottingham, UK]

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👌 PRO TIPS

Which colours are in for 2025? “Looking to keep your content fresh and relevant in 2025? This will help…”

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

216%

– The spike Duolingo reported in US users learning Chinese as RedNote fever took hold (this could be a tin

• TikTok’s US operations could be worth as much as $50 billion if ByteDance decides to sell

• Reddit is on track to hit $1 billion in advertising revenue for 2024, a milestone for the company.

• Twitch accumulated 1.58 billion hours of watch time–apparently its lowest monthly total in over four years, according to Streams Charts. But it also saw an uptick in new streamers joining, and an uptick in the average number of concurrent channels live at any one time.

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📈 CHARTED

How Mark Zuckerberg lost $60 billion in five years - AR and VR sales are way behind what has been predicted over the years.

• Meta, Google stand to win ad share from TikTok ban

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• Some users are ditching Meta’s apps after its shift to right-wing thinking on moderation and diversity. [NBC News]

• Mark Zuckerberg’s move to make Meta more Trump-y reportedly began after his Thanksgiving visit to Mar-a-Lago. [New York Times $$$]

• Former Meta employees say Meta’s moderation teams were already in Texas, and Zuckerberg’s talk of moving them there was just a bid to gain Trump’s approval. [The Guardian]

• There are fears removing fact-checkers will make it harder for older Facebook-users to tell the difference between truth and fiction. [The Guardian]

• Mark Zuckerberg reportedly blamed former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg for an inclusivity initiative that encouraged employees’ self-expression in the workplace, when he met with controversial Trump loyalist Stephen Miller. [New York Times $$$]

• A union representing some of Meta’s UK staff has expressed concern over the company’s moderation and diversity changes. [The Guardian]

• A senior UK cabinet minister has promised not to dilute new online safety measures despite Mark Zuckerberg’s attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content. [ The Guardian]

• Meta has refused to offer a timeline for its promised account portability feature on Threads. [TechCrunch]

• Meta has added 200 megawatts of solar to its 12 gigawatt renewable energy portfolio. [TechCrunch]

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• An Instagram-inspired app using Bluesky content has launched in reaction to Meta’s ‘anti-woke’ changes. [Gizmodo]

• Snapchat has pledged $5 million in aid after the Los Angeles fires. [Social Media Today]

• …and YouTube is donating $15 million in LA wildfire relief, and offering support for creators days before TikTok ban. [CNBC]

• Substack is offering a $25,000 prize to the ‘creative genius’ who can make a TikTok video that sparks a trend of encouraging TikTok creators to switch to Substack. [Fast Company]

• LinkedIn has launched a new promotional campaign to highlight its ad targeting options. [Social Media Today]

• YouTube star Ms. Rachel is coming to Netflix. [The Verge]

New features and tests:

• Substack now lets all publishers broadcast live video. [Engadget]

• Openvibe, a Bluesky and Mastodon client. has added notification support. [9to5Google]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

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

• Despite DEI & content moderation reversals, advertisers won’t flee Meta

• What's this smiley? Your guide to deciphering every emoji

• “Buy nothing groups got me back on Facebook, but Zuckerberg is about to make me quit again”

• UK TikTokers say goodbye to US followers as ban looms: ‘It’s a really beautiful community’

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😳 AND FINALLY…

“A 28-year-old woman with a busy social life spends hours on end talking to her AI boyfriend for advice and consolation. And yes, they do have sex.” 😳

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

…and you’re all up to date!

Okay, I’m off to get ready for streaming the first episode of season 2 of the absolutely brilliant Apple TV+ show Severance tonight.

Now that’s what I call a good night in!

Matt will be back with you next week, same time, same place. 👌

– Martin