Welcome to another week of updates. X announced another large-scale cleanup of fake and spam accounts, but this one is more aggressive than previous attempts. The company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, recently posted on the platform that X is now eliminating 208 bot accounts per minute.
The company says a big part of its product team has been working specifically on spam and bot detection tools to improve how it finds and removes fake accounts.
Their efforts are tied to concerns that AI is making bots harder to spot, so X is trying to get ahead of a bigger wave of more sophisticated fake accounts. As these fake accounts get removed, users may notice their follower counts going down as fake followers are being deleted, they said.
Here’s what else is new this week.
X
X is tweaking how content gets distributed to reward more original, high-quality posts rather than spammy content. This switch up should make the timeline reflect what people care about, instead of being flooded by engagement bait or copycat posts, Bier said on the platform.
In other words, content that brings something new, useful or interesting should get more visibility.
X also added voice replies to DMs through its new messaging system, XChat. Users can now send audio messages in both one-on-one chats and group chats.
The company additionally announced that Grok will now auto translate posts globally, meaning content in any language can be read by more people. The auto translation tool can be turned off in settings if users prefer to read it in its original language.
YouTube
YouTube has responded to user claims that it’s testing 90-second, unskippable ads. Social Media Today reports that a Reddit user shared a screenshot of an ad showing a 90-second countdown, but the streaming platform said this is a bug and they are not increasing ad times.
“We’ve determined this was a result of a bug, which resulted in higher, inaccurate timers being shown for shorter ads,” YouTube said on X. “We’re rolling out a fix now. As we’ve said, we don’t have a 90 second non-skippable ad format and this was not a test.”
YouTube increased the prices of its Premium tier membership for the first time in a couple years. Individual plans have been raised by $2 per month while family plans have increased by $4 per month.
The company says the increase helps maintain the service and support creators.
Instagram is testing a change that would make Notes shareable to all followers, rather than only mutual followers.
In a post on Threads, user Hammod Oh shared a screenshot from IG which explained the update and also said that users can edit who they’re sharing Notes with at any time.
The platform additionally lets users edit comments after posting. With a 15-minute window to make changes, users can edit as many times as they want.
Once a comment is updated, it will show an “Edited” label so others know it was changed, but not a version history.
TikTok
TikTok announced an integration with Wix that should make it easier for businesses to connect their websites directly to TikTok. Users can set up TikTok ads, sync their product pages and track performance in one place without needing a lot of technical setup, the app makers say.
It’s part of TikTok’s bigger push to make shopping and advertising more seamless, so brands can move from content to conversion faster, TikTok says.
Additionally, TikTok is adding a new integration with HubSpot that connects its ad tools directly to a company’s CRM. This means leads collected through TikTok ads can be automatically sent into HubSpot in real time, so teams won’t have to download or upload data manually.
LinkedIn now has a full-screen vertical video feed that looks a lot like TikTok or Reels. When users tap on a video, it turns into a swipeable mode where they can scroll through more videos, like, comment or share without leaving the player.
There’s also a dedicated “Video” tab on the mobile version along with options to follow creators and see more of their content directly from the feed.
For now, the feature is only available to some users while it’s being tested, LinkedIn said.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].
