ICYMI: Did Social Just Self Destruct?

Meta went MAGA, TikTok played chicken

⏰ 1-SECOND SUMMARY

• Mark Zuckerberg entered his villain era with a slew of policy changes at Meta

• Meta’s new Community Notes reportedly won’t apply to ads, but will apply to sponsored creator posts

• Adam Mosseri says Instagram’s prioritizing original content and there will soon be a way to see which Reels your friends liked

• TikTok is likely to go dark Sunday as the Supreme Court upholds the ban

• LinkedIn creators came together to fundraise for those displaced by the wildfires

• Linktree put Heidi Montag on a Times Square billboard after she lost her house

• Watch Duty became the most important app for Angelenos during the wildfires

• Pinterest’s top colors of 2025 include: Cherry Red, Dill Green and Alpine Oat

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💻 ROADMAP

📲 Meta Updates

This has been the wildest week in social and self-sabotaging billionaires since Elon Musk walked into Twitter HQ carrying a kitchen sink.

To recap the Darth Vader style to-do list Mark Zuckerberg put into action this week:

• A Meta executive announced the company was suddenly in favor of bots existing on the app alongside human users

• Mark Zuckerberg announced his plan to end fact-checking in favor of community notes and shift content moderation teams from California to Texas

• Zuckerberg added acknowledged wife-slapper Dana White to Meta’s board of directors

• Zuckerberg terminated Meta’s DEI programs, effective immediately

• Meta dismantled the system that prevented misinformation from spreading in the United States

• Zuckerberg complained on Joe Rogan’s podcast that companies didn’t have enough masculine energy, despite women only making up about 23% of the tech workforce

• Meta blocked links to a decentralized Instagram competitor called Pixelfed

• Meta removed trans and non-binary pride flag themes from the Messenger app

• Meta announced impending layoffs with Zuckerberg labeling the affected employees as “low performers”

At first, I thought some of the early headlines were diversions to distract from upcoming bad news. But midway through the week it became apparent Zuckberg was simply taking off his mask and entering his villain era.

It’s just business, Meta will surely shrug. After all, the company is facing an antitrust lawsuit in 2025 and needs to play nice with the incoming administration. But Google and Apple are in similar situations and you don’t see Sundar Pichai or Tim Cook tossing women and children overboard to save themselves.

Beyond the eye rolls, what does it mean? Creator Katie Steckly did a great video explainer on the impact of Meta’s latest moves on creators and brands.

What it boils down to is this: these platforms are going to become less welcoming and less friendly to everyone but particularly to marginalized groups who suffer from online harassment.

It could also lead to brand safety issues that affects partnerships — though I suspect Meta is working on a plan to maintain a brand safe experience by increasing the reliance on paid ads, reducing the importance of organic content and diminishing the power of creators.

According to documents seen by the Wall Street Journal, Meta’s new Community Notes reportedly won’t apply to paid ads. But Community Notes will be enabled for other types of content, such as partnership posts on creator accounts or organic brand account content.

“I think we’re going to see the disappearance of sponsored content on creator pages,” I told WSJ’s Patrick Coffee when he asked for my thoughts.

We’ve all heard it before but it is really time to diversify where you’re showing up, whether that’s a newsletter, website, podcast, YouTube channel, Pinterest page or LinkedIn video.

📲 TikTok Updates

TikTok is calling the U.S. government’s bluff. The company plans to go dark on Sunday unless the Supreme Court intervenes to block the ban, according to The Information.

While there have been reports of Elon Musk buying the app and MrBeast said he has a posse of billionaires ready to buy the app, China does not seem to be selling.

As of Sunday, U.S. app users will see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, reports Kaya Yurieff.

A Biden administration official has said they’re “exploring options” for how to keep the app available in the U.S. but would respect the impending Supreme Court ruling.

Friday morning, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling but there's still a lot of confusion surrounding the ban that likely won't be resolved until the new administration is installed.

Since we’ve already looked at what you should do if the app does get banned, where to go next?

A lot of apps are vying to replace TikTok: Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Bluesky, LTK, livestream app Favorited and even Substack (the platform that hosts this newsletter).

There are also unexpected contenders, such as RedNote, a Chinese social app which is probably doomed to fail; Gas app creator Nikita Bier’s new offering called Explode; and Steppin, an app that locks you out of social media until you go for a walk.

At this point there is no parallel competitor. People will probably follow their friends and favorite creators to various corners of the internet and it might be a long time before there’s another app that’s able to have the same cultural and technological impact that TikTok had.

Related:

• TikTok Ban Survival Guide: What should creators do now?

• Triller offers a “Save my TikToks” solution

• Influencers put together their post-TikTok plans

• Your guide to a possible TikTok shutdown

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💙 LINKEDIN FOR LA CREATORS UNITE

There’s a long tradition of profile page audits on TikTok and Instagram. So, I took a page from creators on those platforms and co-hosted a LinkedIn Live session on Thursday to do profile audits alongside some notable LinkedIn creators.

The goal was to raise funds for people displaced by the California wildfires and there’s still time to donate if you’re able!

Plus, there’s still a chance to be gifted an ICYMI paid subscription. Praytell, a creative communications agency based in New York, is releasing data next week with YouGov on the rising influence of emerging Substacks. They donated $500 worth of paid ICYMI subscriptions to benefit wildfire victims. Please comment below if you'd like to receive a paid subscription - and therefore help the cause - and they will be in touch.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, everyone who donated, and to my co-hosts Jerry Won, Zach Ferraro, Andrea Casanova, Terry Rice, Cassandra Bankson, Gigi Robinson, Fana Yohannes, Lorraine K. Lee and Clique-Now’s Mylen Yamamoto Tansingco (not pictured).

Elsewhere, generous tech companies donated to wildfire relief efforts — YouTube and Snapchat in particular.

Linktree mobilized on the Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag TikTok trend and raised visibility for the couple’s efforts by putting Montag on a billboard in Times Square within days of them losing their house in the Pacific Palisades.

And nonprofit Watch Duty became the essential app for Angelenos during wildfires. “We get love letters, we get people crying,” CEO and co-founder John Clarke Mills told The Hollywood Reporter.

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👀 ICYMI: JUST THE HEADLINES

• Adam Mosseri says you’ll soon be able to see which Reels friends liked -Instagram

• Instagram’s Mosseri says the app will prioritize original content -CNBC

• Pinterest shared the top five color trends for 2025 -Pinterest Palette

• Influencer lawsuits thrust last-click attribution into the spotlight -Marketing Brew

• Lifting lessons from Gymshark’s influencer fallout -The CFO

• Biden's White House went all in on social media, influencers -Axios

• 7 predictions for social media in 2025 from Creator Economy experts (including me!) -Buffer

• The top fashion and beauty influencers to watch in 2025 -Traackr

Thanks for reading!