Creators

YouTube is now testing multiplayer on two of its casual Playables games, Ludo Club (which is basically Sorry!) and Magic Tiles 3 (a music game).

More new Playables features are on the horizon: “We’re just getting started testing out new features for YouTube Playables with more to come in the future,” YouTube says.

I always love seeing what famous people’s phones look like, and almost did a spit take at this clip of a Spanish politician’s Sonny Angel attachment.

Óscar Puente, minister of transport and sustainable mobility, is apparently a fan of the viral miniature cherub dolls that have amassed an almost cult-like following.

TikTok is running out of time and legal recourse to avoid a US ban unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells it. Here’s the tl;dr on why a three-judge panel unanimously ruled to uphold the law that could expel TikTok, and what comes next.

An update to the Threads app lets users switch between their various feeds on the home screen, similar to what Bluesky allows.

Over the last few weeks, Threads has rolled out a string of updates that crib from Bluesky, including adding custom feeds.

For the anniversary edition of her album, “Goodies,” Ciara removed her collaboration with R. Kelly, but the album includes a very funny mistake: the Windows pop-up sound.

Stereogum found a couple examples of fans playing their records and finding the error on the song “1, 2 Step.” I love it, personally.

The insurgent social platform that’s giving Threads a run for its money says it’s “exploring” additional ways to show that an account is legitimate.

Users currently can verify their accounts to weed out scammy doppelgangers by linking their website with their Bluesky account. But it gets complicated fast.

The TikTok show Boy Room tours the disgusting bedrooms of men, cigarette butts, dirty clothes, and all. It’s gross, funny, and weirdly revealing — and now much more sanitized via an Amazon partnership.

In an HGTV-esque reboot, the show will now give home makeovers featuring Amazon furniture and decor. It serves as a front end to Amazon: Boy Room is also promoting the products via affiliate marketing.

Could be handy if you want to keep track of what your favorite creators are making, or where else to find them on the internet.

Pew Research Center released a report on news influencers who people are increasingly getting their information from.

The report couldn’t have come at a better time, following an election where the role of influencers and podcasters was especially notable. Of today’s news influencers:

- 77 percent have no background with news orgs

- 65 percent are men

- More identify as Republican or conservative than Democratic or liberal

- Far more have a presence on X than on any other platform

And apparently, it’s not hurting them too much, reports The Cut:

As someone who has proven, time and again, to be impervious to traditional shaming tactics, Trump has ultimately given legions of his supporters license to finally go public about their support for him, one prominent New York–based communications consultant told me. And though there has been some backlash to posts like Javed’s in the form of angry comments or Reddit threads documenting influencers who are also Trump supporters, the outcry has been relatively minimal.

After calls for Twitch to address antisemitism on the platform, the site’s hateful conduct policy now includes “Zionist” as a potential slur. Twitch specifies this is conditional: you’re allowed to discuss the political movement of that name, but not “attack or demean another individual or group of people on the basis of their background or religious belief.”

The company announced today it’s opening up its AI ads tool to all advertisers — so prepare to see more AI content on your feed.

TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio lets advertisers remix content and generate new videos promoting products in just a few minutes. Some of those ads even include AI avatars resembling humans.