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Hello, geeks!

Welcome to your geeky download of everything new in social.

The stories making the most headlines this week are deeply disturbing.

And perhaps unsurprisingly are linked to the actions of one company. Meta. Again.

Coming up in a moment…

• Meta’s flirty AI chatbot tricked a vulnerable 76-year-old man to meet her in NYC… But the trip led to his tragic death 😔

  -

• Meta’s internal AI policy document was leaked… It revealed Meta’s rulebook for chatbots, including permitting ‘sensual’ chat with kids 😱
  -

• U.S. lawmakers are pissed about Instagram’s new Maps feature… They’re urging Meta to shut it down already! 😡
  -

• A cookie brand went viral after its social manager made a heart-stopping mistake… She accidentally rebranded the brand’s TikTok account as herself! 😬

Plus…

• Over 50 NEW platform features spotted in the wild…
  Larger images for IG carousels, a revamped Facebook creator dashboard, a tiny new Threads feature that’s actually really useful, and more! 🆕

But first… 

These are worth checking out… 👇🔥 [ad]
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📈 Ever wonder how some brands always jump on TikTok trends first?—This WILD, new AI tool alerts them days before they blow up
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TikTok is where trends explode, brands blow up, and culture happens in real-time. 

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• 📊 Track live brand sentiment — Spot perception shifts and campaign impact in real-time

• 🔍 Expose competitor playbooks — Uncover tactics, creators, trends driving their success

• 🧠 Spot viral trends first — Discover emerging trends before every brand jumps on it

• 👥 Find true-fit influencers — Go beyond vanity metrics to find top creators in your niche

This isn’t social monitoring. It’s like X-ray vision for the video-first era.

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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5

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

2. Meta’s flirty AI fooled a vulnerable retiree who died trying to meet her [DISTURBING]

3. U.S. Supreme Court opens door to social media age-gating in the US [RESTRICTING]

4. U.S. lawmakers have urged Instagram to shut down its new Map feature over privacy concerns [BACKLASHING]

5. WhatsApp is pushing back against Russian efforts to block calls on the platform [BATTLING]

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🚨 EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Meta makes the same user safety mistake…AGAIN

Oh Meta, you just keep making the same mistake, don’t you?

Over the years, Zuck’s social juggernaut has been repeatedly linked to real-world harms as it put growth ahead of safety. Whether it was teen self-harm, destabilising democracies, or a full-on genocide, Meta’s platforms have been linked to them all over the years.

You’d think with all the discussion about AI safety in recent years that now would be the perfect time for a recalibration, to learn from the past and prioritise safety in parallel to growth.

Apparently not.

Reuters had a couple of eye-popping scoops yesterday. Firstly:

“An internal Meta Platforms document detailing policies on chatbot behavior has permitted the company’s artificial intelligence creations to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” generate false medical information and help users argue that Black people are “dumber than white people.”

I mean… WHAT? Why would any decent human being allow that? The policy has apparently now changed… but only after Reuters asked about it.

Then there’s the story of the retired man who developed a bond with a ‘female’ Meta AI chatbot, who persuaded him she was real and would meet him at a specific address in the New York. He died as a result of an accident on the way to meet her.

Just… yikes.

Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann Le Cunn often says he is very much minded towards AI safety, but that’s out back in the lab. Once these technologies go live and get growth targets, the rush to dominate consumer AI takes over and safety seemingly becomes an afterthought.

There has already been a call by US senators for probe into the child safety issue.

With promises of ‘superintelligence’, big tech companies are rushing us into an AI-powered future while making the same dumb mistakes as they have in the past.

New research shows that AI can be used to change people’s minds, with little clear accountability. The time is right for politicians to stop being seduced by AI hype and start taking a close look at where this rush to put AI everywhere is taking us.

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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY

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

Meta / Facebook / Messenger 👥

• Meta’s Professional Dashboard now has a fully-functional comments manager on the web, plus new metrics, ‘Popular with your Followers’ insights, and more

• Meta hired conservative activist Robby Starbuck as an AI bias advisor, as part of a settlement for his defamation suit after he accused Meta AI of lying about him

• Meta is set to unveil a “big wearable announcement” at next month’s Connect event. Rumours suggest it’s a smartwatch

• Meta rolled out major updates to Brand Rights Protection, its tool for tackling brand misuse on Facebook and Instagram, letting brands report scam ads ‘at scale

• Facebook is sending reminders to creators to switch to the new monetisation programme before the old ones are discontinued at the end of the month

• Meta’s big money hiring push for ‘superintelligence’ is causing internal friction as other teams feel sidelined and underpaid

  … and Microsoft is trying to poach Meta’s AI talent and offering multimillion-dollar pay packages

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Instagram ✨

• Instagram’s working on a new ‘Picks’ feature, which I briefly mentioned last week. The feature lets users highlight favourite shows, songs, books, and more to reveal shared interests. More details here and here.

• Instagram is subtly upsizing posts to 1080x1440 on the main feed

• More Instagram users are furious after being falsely banned for child exploitation—with zero clarity on what triggered it.

• Instagram Edits’ latest app update added a new Reels analytics UI, safe zone mapping to avoid videos clashing with UI buttons, keyframe curves, and more

• Instagram Edits updated its Create button with the option to use the camera

• Instagram is distributing $30–$33 cheques to Illinois users after settling a $68.5 million privacy lawsuit

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WhatsApp 🟢 / Threads 🧵 

• WhatsApp added scheduled group calls and emoji call reactions

• WhatsApp is testing Motion Photo sharing on Android

• WhatsApp is testing a feature to choose who can access the group invite link

• WhatsApp is working on a feature to display who recently viewed a Status update, along with its privacy settings

• Threads now adds numbered labels to threaded posts. No more manually adding ‘1/3’ to your multi-part Threads. Tiny change. Super useful.

• Threads is testing updates to DMs, adding controls to manage who can message you and a new inbox layout

• Threads is still working on ‘Snippets’, which will let you attach longer text, news articles, book excerpts, etc

• Threads is working on the ability to create something called ‘ghost posts’. Possibly a way to share posts only visible to you.

• Threads also launched a new design for the icons in the post composer

• Threads now lets you mute Custom Feed notifications, so you don’t get an alert when someone adds you to their feed

__________

Twitter (‘X’) 🤡

• X now watermarks screenshots taken on iOS

• X’s XChat now lets you upload files directly from Google Drive on desktop

• X’s XChat has added the unencrypted option on desktop

• X’s XChat on desktop now displays emojis with a quick shortcut at the bottom left

• xAI was reportedly removed from a federal AI deal after Grok recently praised Hitler

• xAI hired 14 Meta employees this year as the AI talent war rages on

__________

YouTube 📺

• YouTube Shorts creators can now earn money by adding app ads with clickable CTAs to their videos

• YouTube doubled the image limit in Community Posts to 10, added new CTA buttons for Promote campaigns, and more

• UK audience tracker Barb will now measure YouTube on TVs with Nielsen-style panels

• Marketers say YouTube trails rivals in scalable creator ads, citing BrandConnect’s complexity and lack of education

__________

TikTok 📱

• TikTok launched Go, a simplified affiliate programme for hotel promotions

• TikTok is rolling out new Community Guidelines with simplified language and expanded transparency

• TikTok will replace its German moderators with AI and outsourced labour

• TikTok added a Drafts folder in the Creation tab on iOS

• TikTok launched a challenge to post about Netflix’s Wednesday season 2 and collect photo frames as a reward

• TikTok is promoting Taylor Swift’s new album with an in-app activation in TikTok Search

• TikTok added a Summer Holiday challenge for TikTok Live.

__________

Snapchat / LinkedIn / BeReal / More… 👻

• LinkedIn added Mini Sudoku as its latest in-app game

• LinkedIn launched 16 new animated graphics for job, milestone, and project announcements

• LinkedIn now lets every user publish newsletters, removing old follower and Creator Mode barriers

• LinkedIn is promoting Taylor Swift’s new album with an in-app activation in LinkedIn Games

• Reddit is cutting off the Wayback Machine from archiving most content, after it found AI companies scraped these archives

• Bluesky revamped its policies and community guidelines

• Bluesky now hides muted threads from feeds

• Discord now lets developers add chat and social features into their games

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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:

In days after OpenAI launched GPT-5, X was keen to make sure users didn’t leave Grok behind…

Also spotted this week 👀

• YouTube started using AI for age verification in the US

• YouTube is expanding its AI summaries search feature to more Premium users

• YouTube added a Photo to Video feature

• WhatsApp is testing a writing help assistant feature powered by AI Private Processing

• TikTok added AI avatar stickers

• X rolled out Grok’s AI-powered auto-translation for posts to all US users.

• X added a new button in the post actions menu: Make video with Grok

• xAI’s Grok 4 has received a major PDF upgrade, handling hundreds of pages with sharper recognition

• xAI’s Grok app now lets you share generated videos directly to X, Instagram, and more

• xAI added a new British male voice to Grok’s iOS app

• LinkedIn is rolling out AI-generated job summaries to more recruiters in the UK, India, and Australia.

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😆 LOL

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📈 MEMES

TikTok’s new limit of five hashtags per post has some people coping in the best way possible… via the medium of memes….

Find more hashtag rage on the DailyDot.

Also:

• How the Trump administration is memefying deportation for social media

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🌡️ VIRAL

Taylor Swift only needs to so much as blink to cause a hurricane on the internet, so the announcement of a new album… on her boyfriend’s podcast… as part of one of her longest interviews ever….

…yeah, that was a pretty big deal this week. For some.

And because she’s Taylor Swift, the discourse was instantly A LOT. As she and Travis teased the post in a promo video, revealing the title (but not cover) of the album, the Swift fandom exploded…

Also going viral this week: 🔥

• Are these AI-generated classic rock memes fooling anyone?

• Viral TikToks are spotlighting addiction risks tied to Feel Free, a kava-and-kratom drink sold in mini bottles.

• 90s New Labour psychodrama is bizarrely gripping teens on TikTok

• A viral “Performative Male Contest” in Seattle sparked TikTok’s latest masculinity debate

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🪧 BRANDS

This is what social media manager nightmares are made of… 😱

Sweet Loren’s junior social content creator Ryan Weitz accidentally renamed the cookie brand’s TikTok account to her own name—and couldn’t undo it for seven days.

Instead of panicking, her manager embraced it, turning the blunder into viral gold with 25 videos and 1.7M+ views.

(Unless it was all a planned set-up? Either way, well done!)

More brand news this week: 👀

• McDonald’s is reviving Mcdonaldland as a multi-platform experience across Instagram, Snapchat, Horizon Worlds, YouTube, TikTok, X, and even Fortnite

• A look at the data behind the viral Jet2 phenomenon

• E.l.f.’s new satirical ad campaign aimed at TikTok’s Gen Z audience quickly blew up on social media—for the wrong reasons

• Advertisers are underwhelmed by Elon Musk’s AI-managed ads concept for X, citing brand safety concerns and. alack of trust

• Major brands are leaning into episodic storytelling to beat algorithm unpredictability

• Itsu’s new campaign stars the iconic Wealdstone Raider offering dim sum in a viral twist on his catchphrase.

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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?!

“WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted, and defies government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people. “

- WhatsApp speaks out against Russian attempts to block the app in the country

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Also overheard this week: 👂

• “I think this notion of an agent just going and buying all the things for you without you doing anything … I think that’s going to be a very, very long cycle for that to play out, both in terms of how the users think about it, where the users are going to be ready to just let something go run off and do everything for them, save for maybe some very utilitarian journeys,”  
  
  – Pinterest CEO Bill Ready says agentic AI shopping is still a long way out

• “Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation… xAI will take immediate legal action."
  
  – Elon Musk threatens to sue Apple because another AI app is more popular than his 🤷‍♂️ (Apple denies the App Store is biased)

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👀 MY FAV READS

Love him or hate him, there’s a lot to learn from MrBeast’s success.

This article reveals “how MrBeast's production team turns an idea into hundreds of millions of views, according to staffers who have worked on his YouTube videos.”

Also:

• The social media trend machine is spitting out weirder and weirder results

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😮 WTF?!

“Elon Musk is turning to ChatGPT to adjudicate his long-running feud with Sam Altman.”

These men … 🤷‍♂️

Also WTF this week: 👀

• Researchers made a social media platform where every user was AI... the bots ended up at war!

• UK Government tax agency HMRC has revealed it uses AI to monitor social media posts in criminal tax investigations

• Why Mark Zuckerberg’s neighbours not-so-secretly hate him

• Christian nationalist militias are using Instagram to recruit with influencer-style content and edgy aesthetics

• YouTube’s fastest growing channels now include AI garbage factories

• Truth Social’s new Truth Search AI keeps contradicting boss Donald Trump’s view on key issues

• Tech investor Marc Andreessen has complained to Downing Street about Online Safety Act and UK tech minister Peter Kyle

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🤦‍♂️ FAIL

X somehow managed to suspend its own AI bot this week!

Elon Musk called it a “dumb error” and blamed internal mistakes.

Some would say X is just one big '“dumb error”

Also:

• Palestinians in Gaza are using Bluesky to crowdfund for food and supplies, but accounts are repeatedly flagged as spam
  

• There's a new 'Tea' app going viral. This time, it's for men to post anonymously about women… and yes, just like the version for women, its data security was reportedly terrible (although it’s now been fixed)

• Google India’s YouTube channel got hijacked to push crypto scams

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👔 YOU’RE HIRED!

Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week:

Airtable is looking for a Senior Social Media Manager [Remote, USA]

More top social media jobs spotted this week 💼

• Penguin Random House needs a Social Media Producer [London, UK]

• The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is hiring a Head of Creative Social Media [Bristol, London, or Wolverhampton, UK]

• Airbnb is recruiting a Senior Social Media Associate, Channel Communications (contract) [London, UK]

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🧪 SOCIAL SCIENCE

New research worth knowing about:

A German study has shown how Instagram users often miss ads, even when disclosures are present.

Eye-tracking data found users locked onto visuals and CTAs, ignoring labels and hashtags.

Glossy content made users suspicious, but raw, relatable posts kept engagement high.

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👌 PRO TIPS

This is a really useful read all about crafting attention-grabbing hooks…

“I thought I was doing everything right… until I saw this one article.” 😀

More pro-tips worth checking out ✨

• How often should you post on Instagram in 2025? -- What data from 2 million posts reveals

• A creator shared a secret LinkedIn search filter to see new jobs before anyone else

• Meta shared tips on how to improve ad performance with AI

• How to stop Instagram from broadcasting your likes in the Friends tab

• Get to know Reddit power users: they skew male, millennial, and well-educated—much like LinkedIn’s elite crowd.

• Meta revealed how to optimise your ads with its AI systems

• The 5 influencer marketing shifts defining late 2025

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📊 SOCIAL STATS

$45 MILLION

– How much big tech companies spent on security in 2024 as execs face rising political heat and real-world threats

Even more social stats: 📈

• NICE THREADS: Threads has hit 400 million monthly active users, closing in on X’s claimed 600 million

• CREATING A BUZZ: Ticket sales for creator-led live events are up 500% on last year

• SINKING FEELING: Social media referrals to news sites fell from 17.28% in 2019 to 12.99% in July 2025

• GOOD VIBES: 34% of US adults call YouTube the most enjoyable platform, far ahead of Facebook at 23%

• VIDEO GROWTH: Meta reports time spent on Instagram videos is up 20% globally, Facebook video is up 20% in the US

• SOCIAL BOSS: 98% of Fortune 500 CEOs use LinkedIn as their primary or only social media platform, according to LinkedIn itself

• CONCERNING: Snapchat recorded 20,000 grooming and sextortion cases in six months — topping Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others combined

• LINKEDIN-BOX: Newsletter engagement on LinkedIn jumped 47% in 2024, with 184,000 active titles

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📈 CHARTED

How much money Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest, and Snapchat make from you…

tl;dr: Meta makes a sh*tload more than everyone else. 💰

More charted social insights spotted: 👀.

• TALENT WAR: The AI hiring spree charted

• BIG DIPPER: Facebook referrals to US and UK news sites are down 50% since 2019

• SPONCON GROWTH: US creator-brand deals now rival major social platform ad revenues

• HEALTH INFO: TikTok tops social media health trust rankings—but barely

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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES

• Twelve advocacy groups have urged the FTC to probe Meta’s $14.3B purchase of a 49% stake in Scale AI. [Axios]

• Instagram’s co-head of product, Ashley Alexander, is leaving Meta after 11 years. Max Eulenstein will now lead product solo. [The Information $$$]

• Tech giants look set to recruit popular influencers as part of a campaign against Australia’s upcoming ban on under-16s using social media. [The Guardian]

• The Video Advertising Bureau, representing NBCUniversal, ESPN, and others, warns YouTube is under constant attack from bad actors posting unsafe and infringing videos. [TubeFilter]

New features and tests:

• Openvibe added RSS support, letting you to follow blogs and news sites alongside open social platforms. [TechCrunch]

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📰 WEEKEND READS

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

Companies are hiring ‘clippers’ to flood TikTok and Instagram with short, promotional videos….

More great weekend reads:

• Why creators are building Hollywood-style studios to make TV-ready content

• Sex is getting scrubbed from the internet, but a billionaire can sell you AI nudes

• Facebook is dead; long live Meta

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😳 AND FINALLY…

If you watch this stuff, I have one question…. why? 😀

“Nearly one in 10 of the fastest growing channels globally consist of mass-produced, surreal AI-generated videos”

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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK…

And on that sloppy note, you’ve reached the end of this week’s Geekout.

I’m heading off to see if i’m still the most hated man on Bluesky.

Yes, i’m still getting hate-filled DMs and emails.

People get angry about the weirdest (littlest) things. 🤷

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Geekout Summer Holiday ☀️🏝️

Just a quick note to let you know Geekout will be taking it’s annual summer break soon.

I’m heading of to Greece for a much-needed digital detox and family holiday.

There will be no Geekout on FRIDAY 29th AUGUST.

But Geekout will return to your inbox on FRIDAY 5th SEPTEMBER.

__________

Goodbye, geeks!

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