#4 | Spilling the Social Identi-tea

Welcome back to Spilling the Social Identi-tea! ??

Social media can feel like a noisy room, it is a crazy place to navigate. We get it. That's why we have gathered all the best and most important news to help you build your social identity.

After a three-week break over the festive and New Year period, we are back!

And we have A LOT to talk about, so let's get into it shall we?

What is going on with TikTok in the US? Is the ban still going ahead?

All the talk of TikTok getting banned in the US has been going on for what seems like forever.

It's all a bit confusing, so let me try and break it down for you.

Following a court ruling against TikTok in December, paving the way for a potential ban, the company announced its intention to challenge the law before the Supreme Court. This was followed by the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the case and later by an emergency appeal filed by TikTok to block enforcement of the ban.

On December 28th, President-elect Trump filed a legal brief to the Supreme Court, requesting a delay in the TikTok ban deadline.

He also shared this post on Truth Social with the caption "Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?"

While these legal proceedings unfold, prominent figures like Kevin O'Leary and many others have expressed interest in acquiring the platform, further adding to the ongoing saga surrounding TikTok's future in the US.

The federal law that was passed in April 2024 forces TikTok's parent company to sell the app to a US company or face an outright ban in the country.

This law sets a deadline of 19th January for TikTok’s sale, citing national security concerns about the app's foreign ownership and potential influence over American users.

The date I am writing this (10th January), TikTok has announced plans to cease operations in the US on 19th January unless the Supreme Court blocks or delays its ban

Zuck and Meta are in the news again... but what for this time?

Meta has been flooding news feeds recently for multiple different reasons.

Meta platforms ditching third-party fact-checkers for a "Community Notes" feature, similar to X

Firstly, Zuckerburg made a video announcement that he is ditching third-party fact-checkers on Facebook, Threads and Instagram and is opting for a "Community Notes" feature similar to X.

This is undoubtedly a bow to the soon-to-be President Donald Trump. Trump is a huge believer in free speech. When he got banned from Twitter, he set up the Truth Social platform so he could not be censored. He has recently returned to X, while still posting consistently on Truth Social, after Elon Musk took over the platform.

Zuckerburg stated in his video announcement that it was time to prioritise "free expression" and that fact-checkers had become politically biased.

There are two sides to this, one side argues that this is fantastic for free speech and will result in fewer mistakes and the other side believes it will create more freedom for hateful and offensive content.

UFC CEO, Dana White, joins the Meta board along with others

This week Zuckerburg announced that he has appointed Ultimate Fighting Championship chief executive, Dana White, to Meta's board.

Zuckerburg praised Dana White and congratulated him on turning the UFC into a global business.

Dana White is a very close Trump ally and some believe this appointment may have influenced Meta's content censorship changes.

The other new members of Meta's board include John Elkann, who leads European investment firm Exor, and Charlie Songhurst, a former Microsoft executive.

Meta introduces AI profiles and then gets rid of them.

In 2023, Meta announced 28 AI character profiles, along with AI personas with celebrity avatars.

This week, users rediscovered these after a recent Financial Times interview with Meta's VP of product for generative AI, Conor Hayes.

"We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do. They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform?...that’s where we see all of this going."

On platforms like X, Bluesky and Threads, users were pretty open with their opinions on these bots.

A Meta spokesperson said that these profiles were deleted due to a "bug" in users' ability to block the profiles. But it could easily be a reaction to all the negative backlash.

YouTube fully releases 3-minute shorts to all users

Meta tests Ebay listings in Facebook Marketplace

TikTok promotes Lemon8 on the platform following ban

LinkedIn starts testing new vertical video feeds

TikTok adds post-scheduling through the TikTok Studio app

Millennials now outshop Gen Z on TikTok

Amelia Dimoldenberg x Bumble

We love it when a brand partnership actually makes sense and isn't just for the sake of it.

Bumble is a women-focused social media dating app. This partnership launches Bumble's move toward producing more lifestyle content. And who better to kickstart this than Chicken Shop Date creator Amelia?

CIA and Pigeon Cameras

The official CIA Instagram account seemingly admitted to putting cameras on pigeons for the purpose of spying on people.

The internet reacted in the exact way you would expect the internet to react, memed the life out of it.

Our Favorite Trend of the Week: Dads Pretending to be Their Daughters

This one is absolutely hilarious.

Our TikTok feeds have been swarmed with this trend recently. The Daughters are filming their Dads pretending to be them, resulting in some hilariously sassy acting.

That's it for this week!

Catch you in the next one for more updates, trends and conversation. Make sure to subscribe to our Newsletter so you never miss out on the tea!

If you feel like your social media could do with a new lease of life, let's have a chat and make you the stars of your own social show! ?? [email protected]