Snapchat Faces Law Suit and Blue Sky Soars Amidst Brazil X Ban

1/5 Instagram Rolls Out New DM Features 

Instagram is continuing to beef up its DM offerings in response to users engaging with the feature more and more. Amongst other updates, Instagram has added stickers and tools for drawing on images shared in DMs, allowing users more ability to customise their messages. These features have been available on Stories and feed posts for a while now, but the new update marks the first time users can engage with them for DMs. On top of this, Instagram is also updating its cut-outs feature in DMs, now allowing users to select specific elements from photos as stickers; yet another feature that has been available to users on Stories for some time now. Finally, users will now also be able to see which of their friends are celebrating a birthday in the profile updates section of Instagram DMs. These new updates keep in theme with Instagram’s overall 2024 action plan; simply plug out hundreds of new features and hope one of them sticks. 

2/5 Snapchat Fails To Keep Young Users Safe 

The state of New Mexico is considering a potential ban on Snapchat, after a new lawsuit by Attorney General Raul Torrez alleged the platform failed to keep young users safe from harm, sextortion, and sexual exploitation. The filing claims that Snapchat is now the primary social media platform being used by criminals in their sextortion efforts. New Mexico’s Department of Justice has found a deep network of dark web sites that share stolen sexual images all conducted on Snapchat. The platform responded quickly, claiming that it is just as concerned for the safety of young people on its app and has been working closely with safety teams to moderate content and enhance protections in the app. 

3/5 Meta Reveals The Key to Reels Marketing 

With Reels being Meta’s fastest-growing content format, it is no wonder that the organisation is seeking to draw brands into short form videos for the holiday season. In a new 10 page “Reels Performance Playbook”, Meta has laid out all the best tips and tricks for brands on how to create Reels, storytelling how to’s, performance analysis, and how to best engage with trends. Some key takeaways from the report include how to “speak Reels”; videos must be entertaining, digestible, and relatable in order to best speak to audiences. Impressively, the report walks brands through how to best create product focused Reels, and the varying formats that best suit this kind of video. 

4/5 Brazil X Ban Leads to New App Growth 

With X’s ban in Brazil, new apps are quickly growing in popularity. At the beginning of September, Brazilian authorities announced that they would be banning X entirely as a result of the platform failing to protect its users against harmful misinformation. X received an order from Brazilian officials to shut down a group of accounts that have continuously undermined the Brazilian Government. In response, the platform refused, and even went as far to close its Brazilian local office. This absence of a local representative is in direct violation of Brazil’s operating rules, thus leading to the X ban. In wake of the incident, Brazilian citizens have turned to Blue Sky and Meta’s Threads. Blue Sky, created by former Twitter staffers, has seen a climb in 3 million users over the past week, whilst Threads download ranking jumped significantly in the region. 

5/5 YouTube Fights Against AI Deep Fakes

YouTube is upping its defence against AI deep fakes with a new process to better detect and alert creators. Deepfakes are an ever growing concern amongst creators in our era of generativ eAI, with many influencers fearing deep fakes being created against their will and used for malintent. YouTube is advancing its detection in order to better fight against misinformation and misrepresentation on the platform in light of several politicians and artists already falling prey to deep fakes. The new detection process uses “synthetic-singing identification technology”, which will allow publishers and creators to instantly detect AI content on YouTube that mimics their voices. Using audio matching, the technology will highlight fakes and copies, saving creators hours of time spent scouring the internet for AI using their voice. In terms of images, YouTube is also creating a tool which will detect AI depictions of creators' faces, giving talent agents and creators far more peace of mind. 

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