YouTube has added new rules requiring those uploading realistic-looking videos that are “made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI” to label them using a new tool in Creator Studio. The new labeling “is meant to strengthen transparency with viewers and build trust between creators and their audience,” YouTube says, listing examples of content that require disclosure as “likeness of a realistic person” including voice as well as image, “altering footage of real events or places” and “generating realistic scenes” of fictional major events, “like a tornado moving toward a real town.” Continue reading YouTube Adds GenAI Labeling Requirement for Realistic Video

Elon Musk’s xAI has released its Grok chatbot and open-sourced part of the underlying Grok-1 model architecture for any developer or entrepreneur to use for purposes including commercial applications. Musk unveiled Grok in November and announced that it would be publicly released this month. The chatbot itself is available to X social premium members, who can ask the cheeky AI questions and get answers with a snarky attitude inspired by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” sci-fi novel. The training for Grok’s foundation LLM is said to include X social posts. Continue reading Grok-1 Architecture Open-Sourced for General Release by xAI

Decentralized social platform Bluesky has open-sourced a tool called Ozone that facilitates custom moderation. Debuting this week, Ozone lets individuals or teams collaboratively review and label content on the platform. “We’re opening up the ability to run your own independent moderation services, seamlessly integrated into the Bluesky app,” the company says, explaining “you’ll be able to create and subscribe to additional moderation services” on top of that which is administered by Bluesky’s moderation team, “giving you unprecedented control over your social media experience.” Continue reading Ozone Helps Users Customize Content Moderation on Bluesky

Having fended off challenges in the short-form video sphere since its late 2016 launch, it now appears TikTok is playing offense, laying the groundwork for a photo-sharing app that has drawn comparisons to Instagram and Pinterest. Avid TikTok users are probably familiar with a feature that lets them post still images as moving images that can be examined by advancing frame-by-frame. Now TikTok seems to want to improve that approach by building a separate TikTok Photos app to which users of the primary platform can export and showcase their still images to Android and iOS. Continue reading TikTok Updates Its Code to Sync to Separate ‘TikTok Photos’

The House of Representatives voted 352 to 65 today to pass a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban of popular video-sharing app TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance and currently used by 170 million Americans. The bill, introduced out of concern for national security, would prohibit TikTok from app stores in the U.S. unless it is spun off from ByteDance. It is not clear how the Senate will respond to the proposed legislation, which advanced unanimously by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (50-0), and President Biden indicated he would sign. Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry has called the measure an “act of bullying.” Continue reading House Passes Bill That Could Remove TikTok from App Stores

Elon Musk wants to bring videos posted to X (formerly Twitter) to a bigger screen. The social platform plans to launch a YouTube-like app on smart TVs, starting with Samsung TVs and Amazon Fire TVs. Since purchasing Twitter in October 2022, Musk has emphasized its evolution to a “video-first” platform as part of its rebranding as X. Internal research claims X users watch videos in eight out of 10 visits, which would make it an obvious opportunity for expansion. In the early stages, it appears the focus will be long-form video, which can more easily accommodate advertising. Continue reading X Teases Launch of a YouTube-Like Video App for Smart TVs

Reddit is moving ahead with its IPO and plans to raise between $682 million and $748 million on a fully diluted valuation of between $5.8 billion and $6.4 billion. Although no date has been announced, the IPO is expected to take place sometime this month. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday, Reddit says it will offer 22 million 15.3 million Class A common shares and 6.7 million insider shares from investors including CEO Steve Huffman and COO Jen Wong. Pricing will be between $31 and $34 per share. The proposed market cap is $4.9 billion to $5.4 billion. Continue reading Reddit Hopes to Raise $748M in IPO Aimed at $6.4B Valuation

Facebook chief Tom Alison says parent company Meta Platforms is building a giant AI model that will eventually “power our entire video ecosystem.” Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this week, Alison said the model will drive the company’s video recommendation engine across all platforms that host long-form video as well as the short-form Reels, which are limited to 90 seconds. Alison said the company began experimenting with the new, super-sized AI model last year and found that it helped improve Facebook’s Reels watch time by anywhere from 8-10 percent. Continue reading Meta Building Giant AI Model to Power Entire Video Ecosystem

Comscore and YouTube have expanded their partnership by integrating Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR) with YouTube Shorts and In-Feed inventory, making available a range of additional ad data specific to those outlets, across connected TV, mobile and desktop. In the months ahead, the toolkit will also add measurement of Masthead inventory. YouTube has been connected to CCR for standard video inventory and YouTube TV since Q4 2021. YouTube Shorts is a fast-growing part of the Google-owned video ecosystem, averaging over 70 billion daily views, according to YouTube and Comscore. Continue reading YouTube, Comscore Integrate Campaign Ratings with Shorts

The House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would make it illegal in the U.S. to distribute TikTok under its current ownership. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “prevents app store availability or web hosting services in the U.S. for ByteDance-controlled applications, including TikTok, unless the application severs ties to entities like ByteDance that are subject to the control of a foreign adversary,” according to a sponsor statement. Violators would be subject to a penalty of $5,000 for every U.S. user that “accessed, maintained or updated” any “foreign adversary controlled applications” from its platform. Continue reading House Intros a Bill to Penalize App Stores Distributing TikTok

In its continuing effort to expand in-app shopping activity, TikTok is testing an option to allow users to automatically identify products in their uploads — a march toward making all objects shoppable. The test lets select users toggle to “Identify Similar Objects” within a video. When activated, the AI-powered ISO highlights matching products that can be purchased in-app. TikTok has been exploring the feature for deployment in the United States this past year. TikTok parent ByteDance has for some time been using the in-stream shopping feature in the platform’s Chinese sister platform, Douyin. Continue reading TikTok Tests Feature Designed to Streamline In-App Shopping

Bluesky — Jack Dorsey’s alternative to X (formerly Twitter) — has been quietly ramping up, recently opening for general public sign-ups while adding hashtag support and the ability for users to host their own servers. The company last month appointed Aaron Rodericks to the newly created position of head of trust and safety, a title he held at Twitter before Elon Musk purchased it and decimated the division (which he now co-heads with X CEO Linda Yaccarino). The technical updates will make it easier for users to sort threads for topics of interest and takes a big step toward federation and allowing users to freely move their accounts. Continue reading Bluesky Opens to the Public Ahead of the Presidential Election

Users appear to prefer Meta Platforms’ Threads to Elon Musk’s social platform X, based on the disparity between the number of downloads, which is widening. Globally, Meta’s Instagram spinoff — which has many of the same features as the app formerly known as Twitter — has recently been seeing three times as many daily downloads as X on iOS devices, and more than twice as many from the Google Play app store for Android. The analysis is from intelligence firm Appfigures, which this week lists Threads as No. 2 among all free app downloads, and X at No. 40. As Threads introduces new features, it is also testing a new in-app camera. Continue reading Threads Surpasses X in Downloads, Tests an In-App Camera

Florida’s legislature has passed a bill banning children younger than 16 from having social media accounts despite some pushback from Governor Ron DeSantis, who said he will be wrestling with whether to sign the measure into law. Due to a procedural requirement, DeSantis will have to sign or veto the proposed legislation before lawmakers conclude the current session in a matter of weeks. He has expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of a provision to let parents override the restriction, which would curtail access to the most popular sites, potentially impacting TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube. Continue reading Florida Pushes Forward a Social Media Ban for Kids Under 16

Community message board and social news aggregator Reddit, founded in 2005, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO observers say may be complete in a matter of weeks. It is the first social media company to go public in many years, with Snap Inc.’s 2017 offering cited as the most recent stock market splash. Reddit’s bankers are reportedly seeking a $5 billion valuation, about half the $10 billion it was valued at for a 2021 private funding round. Reddit filed with the SEC the same day it announced an “expanded partnership” with Google to use Vertex AI. Continue reading Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google