Bluesky Chases Threads and Australia Doubles Down on Banning Social Media for Under 16s

1/5 Is Bluesky Coming for Threads? 

The news has been filled with reports of Threads cowering in the face of Bluesky. Yet, is Meta’s Twitter look-alike really in danger? Bluesky, an app similar to Threads and Twitter created by former Twitter staff, has climbed from 9 million September users to 20 million at present. Threads however is sitting cosy at 27.5 million active users, so it is not as if Bluesky is truly coming for its throne. Despite this, Threads has suddenly begun to roll out an alarming number of new updates - many of which are reminiscent of Bluesky’s offerings. Instagram Chief Adam Mosseri also publicly responded to a Threads post that claimed Bluesky has a higher ratio of total signups to daily users. Clearly, Threads is feeling the pressure if their Chief feels the need to publicly defend the platform. 

2/5 Australia Moves Forward With Teen Social Media Ban 

Amidst plenty of criticism and questions of intent, the Australian government has announced it will be moving ahead with its social media restrictions for users aged 16 and under. The bill would see applicable users banned from social media apps. The “Online Safety Amendment” bill was introduced to Parliament late last week, meaning now Parliament is required to vote on the bill. Whilst the government desires to fast-forward the bill and enact it as soon as possible, many experts have voiced their fears about the impact it will have, as well as the realities of enforcement. According to the bill, platforms will be responsible for detecting and blocking users. This is a tall order, considering that there is not currently any technology that has a 100% success rate at blocking underage users. 

3/5 Pinterest Unwraps Holiday Campaign Hub 

Pinterest is launching a brand new “Festive Season Hub” to help businesses ace the holiday season. On top of this, the platform is also adding new ad options, such as the “Special Offers” feature, which allows brands to add specific offer tags to help with interest. “Performance+” has also been added to Pinterest’s holiday ads arsenal, an automated ad suite that “automatically applies best practices” to campaigns. The new suite will help marketers with bidding, targeting, and budgeting, supposedly getting rid of 50% of the typical set-up fields according to Pinterest. Finally, marketers can now add AI backgrounds to their ads, helping create more visually captivating Pins. 

4/5 YouTube Launches “Hype” to Boost Smaller Creators

YouTube has released a new update on its “Hype” option. Previously announced in September, Hype will allow fans to gift out “hype points” to videos from up-and-coming creators, helping that content get more reach. Users will receive a set amount of Hype to dish out to creators with under 500,00 subscribers (the selected video must also have been posted less than 7 days ago), which will refresh regularly. The platform is also considering allowing people to buy more hype, with a portion of that going to the creators who receive it. Hype is currently being tested on a group of creators in Brazil, before being rolled out properly in 2025. 

5/5 Wicked is Snapchat’s First Sponsored Snap 

Snapchat announced its new Sponsored Snaps back in September, and users have just received their first campaign. The new feature sees Snapchat ads being directly inserted into user’s inboxes and has been received with less than mixed reviews. The first Sponsored Snap campaign was released last week, with a DM video message being sent to all US Snapchatters over 18 to promote Wicked. In a Snapchat-style video, Jonathan Bailey told users to go check out the movie, with a CTA to buy tickets for the movie. We are yet to see how users respond to the campaign, but many are supposing it won’t exactly be positive. Whilst users are accustomed to ads everywhere on social media, in their inboxes might be a step too far.

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