For the first time, a social platform has taken over 10% of total TV viewing numbers. Additionally, Threads is plowing ahead with new features and crossposting capability. Meanwhile, Zuckerburg has laid out the suppression requests Meta received from the Biden administration regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues. Let’s take a look at this week’s social media news!
1. Zuckerberg says the Biden administration pressured him to censor COVID-19 content
Zuckerberg has expressed remorse for Meta’s role in suppressing COVID-19 content, citing pressure from the Biden administration to control information.
From Zuckerberg’s letter, via Reuters:
“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree,” Zuckerberg wrote in the letter, which was posted by the Judiciary Committee on its Facebook page.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret we were not more outspoken about it,” he wrote. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”
That is a pretty powerful statement, and Zuckerberg promised political neutrality moving forward.
2. Meta announces new Threads features
Threads is expanding regularly, adding new features and functionality. They just announced some long-awaited features.
Today, we’re excited to announce new Threads web features including insights, multiple drafts and scheduling functions to make it easier to plan content and connect with new and existing audiences. Insights and multiple drafts are starting to roll out, and scheduling will begin testing soon.
3. X is not experiencing an exodus
In the wake of Elon Musk taking over the platform, there has been a lot of anecdotal chatter about a decrease in users on X. The Threads community, in particular, has discussed the exodus with glee. However, this may not be entirely true.
While these third-party estimates could be lagging behind an actual shift in user engagement — one that may be reflected in later data — it’s also possible that more people are simply talking on Threads about how they recently left X because others are doing the same. Threads’ algorithm may have also highlighted these kinds of “quitting Twitter/X” posts in the app’s For You feed because of the engagement around the topic, making even a smaller shift feel much larger and more impactful than it was.
The whole article provides a lot of context for the anecdotal X drama, and is an interesting read.
4. YouTube breaks 10% of total TV viewing
YouTube became the first streaming platform to exceed 10% of total TV viewing, making it the first social platform to do so.
YouTube became the first streaming platform ever to exceed 10% of total TV usage in July. The most popular streamer shot up 7% versus last month, accounting for 10.4% of TV usage (+0.5 pt.). This comes after YouTube hit 9.9% of TV in June and secured the second largest share of TV viewing among all media distributors.
5. Instagram adds profile songs
Tom called and would like you to know that MySpace is back. Seriously, though, this feels a little retro and kind of fun. You can add your “theme song” to your Instagram profile, a la MySpace 2004.
