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Hello, geeks! | STOP! Before you go any further, whether TikTok shuts down in the US or not this weekend, you should definitely be smart and do this. | This week, Matt is NOT bringing you Geekout. He's taking a well-earned break after a very busy week of travelling. | Instead, hello - I'm Martin, who regular readers will know creates this newsletter with Matt each week. | All the words in the newsletter are mine, so don't blame Matt if you don't like them 🙃 Or do.. he let me write them. 😀 | It looks like Matt had a brilliant time in Dubai, speaking at the 1 Billion Followers Summit. | I'm sure he'll fill you on the details next week, but here are some snapshots I nabbed from his Instagram Story highlights: | | It's been a crazy week in the news, with the 'what will happen to TikTok' question raging on (what will happen on Sunday? 😬) and the surprise (but probably very much temporary) rise of RedNote. | I'll fill you in on all of that and more below. But first… | DON'T MISS THIS… | Looking to stay ahead in 2025? Check this out 👇 |
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Your social strategy needs this! | | What's the difference between a good social strategy and a great one? Data! | Data-driven decisions rooted in real-world insights can make a huge impact on a campaign's success. | The 2025 Sprout Social Index dives into the trends shaping brand social strategy—exploring how platforms, audiences and expectations are evolving. | ✨ Identify where brands are seeing the biggest ROI
✨ Learn how teams are adapting to rapid change
✨ Spot the social trends reshaping 2025 | Whether you're building campaigns for local markets or a global audience, these free reports are your go-to guide for staying ahead. | |
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🔥 GEEKOUT HOT 5 | Geekout's pick of the hottest headlines in social this week: |  | Everyone suddenly has cold feet about banning TikTok | It's looking increasingly unlikely that TikTok will actually disappear on January 19. |
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| American #TikTokrefugees flood Chinese social media app RedNote ahead of ban [MOVING] Meta disbands diversity team and says DEI has become 'charged' [DISBANDING] Elon Musk is being sued by the SEC over the way he bought Twitter [SUING] 'Free Our Feeds' campaign backed by Mark Ruffalo and others aims to billionaire-proof Bluesky's tech [FREEING]
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📩 Get this into your inbox… | | At Geekout, we recommend this one… | TheFutureParty newsletter breaks down the future of entertainment, media, and creator economy with sharp, witty insights. | From fake food products going viral to Gen Z using TikTok to find jobs, their curated daily stories are relevant, informative, and fun to read – a great accompaniment to your weekly Geekout fix. | Join 260,000 creative professionals already staying smarter and ahead of the curve. | Sign up – it's free! | |
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🚨 EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT… | RedNote's big week as TikTok squirms |  | American #TikTokrefugees flood Chinese social media app RedNote ahead of ban |
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| At the start of the week, it looked like the wait for the US Supreme Court's decision on TikTok would be the big story of the week, but events had other ideas. | Unless you spend a lot of time immersed in Chinese social media, you probably hadn't heard of Xiaohongshu (AKA RedNote) before this week. But as rivals started courting users to shift over from TikTok, it became the surprise breakout star. | RedNote topped the US App Store and gained nearly 3 million new US users according to web data company SimilarWeb. | The sudden nature of the move allowed a remarkable cultural exchange to begin, with American and Chinese users swapping notes about their lives and countries. | Unsurprisingly, this alarmed Chinese censors and prompted RedNote into scrambling to hire English language moderators. | So should you join RedNote? Probably not. | Signing up to the platform is more of a meme than a genuine long-term shift. TikTok users simply wanted to show they had no qualms about using a Chinese-owned service, rubbing the fact in the noses of frustrated politicians. | ________ | Things suddenly look hopeful for TikTok | /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25826019/STK051_TIKTOKBAN_STK463_SCOTUS__CVirginia_C.jpg) | Biden punts the TikTok ban to Trump |
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| With the Supreme Court expected to uphold the law that will force TikTok to shut down in the US THIS SUNDAY, things should be looking bleak for the app's staff and users. And yet things look surprisingly hopeful. | Parent company ByteDance had said it was "planning for various scenarios" and signalled that it was preparing for an immediate shutoff on Sunday. | And yet various routes to saviour sprang up. Could Elon Musk broker a deal? Could it get an extension to seal a deal? | TikTok's last minute lobbying push seems to be working, with many politicians joining Donald Trump in changing their tune to support the app's continued life in the US. | A strong sign came with the news that TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew would be joining Zuck and Musk at Trump's inauguration as invited guests on Monday. That's a positive sign if ever I saw one. | Increasingly, it looks like whatever the Supreme Court says, it will be down to Trump whether TikTok shuts down for good. | As things stand right now, I wouldn't expect the app to go dark in the US on Sunday. Or if it does, it'll likely be back soon enough. |
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✨ NEW & NOTEWORTHY | Everything else you need to know from the past seven days… |
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Meta 👥 |
 | Collaborate on Reels from Business Suite (credit: @oncescuradu) |
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Instagram ✨ / Messenger 📩 |
 | Add lyrics to music notes in Messenger (credit: @jonahmanzano) |
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WhatsApp 💬 / Threads 🧵 |
 | New stickers and effects in WhatsApp |
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 | X video analytics (credit: @jonahmanzano) |
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X is NOT planning to remove dates from posts or charge users $8 to sign up. Fortune admitted it had been fooled by a troll and retracted its report X has been spotted showing news in search results X has launched video analytics New usage data suggests a decline in time spent on X throughout 2024 X is offering a 30% discount for a year's subscription to Verified Organizations X's increase in AI tools for users is raising fears of increased levels of racist abuse
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TikTok 📱 |
 | Beats in TikTok (credit: @jonahmanzano) |
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Reddit / LinkedIn / Telegram / More… ⚡️ |
 | Pixelfed's new iOS app |
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Decentralised Instagram alternative Pixelfed has launched its own mobile apps The FTC says Snapchat's My AI chatbot poses "risks and harms to young users," and has referred the case to the Department of Justice Mastodon has announced it will transition to a non-profit structure Snapchat has launched a marketing campaign looking to tempt users away from TikTok ahead of its ban deadline
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🔥 Want to see more hot NEW features spotted in the wild this week?
Just head to the 'More news' section below! |
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🤖 SOCIAL A.I. | The newest social media A.I. features spotted this week: |  | Meta AI widget for WhatsApp (credit: WABetaInfo) |
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😆 LOL | The sudden rise of RedNote was good for a laugh… |  | Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com |  |
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American teens are flocking to a new video app |  | | | 10:36 PM • Jan 15, 2025 | | | | | | 17.2K Likes 2.35K Reposts | 612 Replies |
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|  | Duolingo @duolingo |  |
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oh so NOW you're learning mandarin | | | 2:51 PM • Jan 14, 2025 | | | | | | 191K Likes 18.1K Retweets | 1.8K Replies |
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| This one would be a recipe for disaster… | |
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📈 MEMES | TikTok users love to use humour in the face of adversity… | /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25829975/STK051_TIKTOKBAN_B_CVirginia_A.jpg) | 'Goodbye to my Chinese spy' might be the last great TikTok trend |
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|  | Watch now on TikTok | @_unsc_ | #tiktokban |
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|  | Watch now on TikTok | @lisandravcomedy | An open letter to my special Chinese Spy 💙 #tiktokban #politicstiktok #comedy |
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🙊 WHAT DID YOU SAY?! | "I cannot in good conscience serve as their lawyer any longer" | – Respected lawyer Mark Lemley dropped Meta as a client (in the middle of a case!) after the company embraced the Trump agenda | Mark Zuckerberg claimed Meta's fact checking programme was like "something out of 1984" when he appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast. Meta's CTO says the introduction of its new content policies was 'ham fisted' Snapchat is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to suicide and self-harm content, children's charity the Molly Rose Foundation says. Will AI replace coders at Meta this year? "Probably in 2025, we at Meta as well as the other companies that are basically working on this are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of mid-level engineer that you have at your company that can write code," Zuck told Rogan. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle say "ego or profit" is behind Meta's decision to scrap fact-checkers MrBeast claims billionaires are in his DMs looking to finance a TikTok purchase Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube's battle to remove pirated content to defend his own company's use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books
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👀 MY FAV READS | "We have simultaneously too much and too little information." | /cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25824779/STK438_CLIMATE_CHANGE_B.jpg) | Social media platforms are not built for this |
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😮 WTF?! (Elon special) | "Will Elon Musk post more than 400 tweets this week? More than 800? Estimate correctly and you could wind up with a nice chunk of cash if you were to back your opinion by buying 'shares' on Polymarket. " |  | Elon Musk tweets so much, people bet over $1M weekly to guess how many posts |
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🤦 FAIL | You'd think this would be an easy one for Meta to avoid… |  | Instagram Ads Send This Nudify Site 90 Percent of Its Traffic |
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👔 YOU'RE HIRED! | Hot new social media jobs worth checking out this week: | | |
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👌 PRO TIPS | Which colours are in for 2025? "Looking to keep your content fresh and relevant in 2025? This will help…" |  | Pinterest Highlights Key Color Trends for 2025 | Pinterest has identified five key color trends that will resonate in 2025. |
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📊 SOCIAL STATS | 216% | – The spike Duolingo reported in US users learning Chinese as RedNote fever took hold (this could be a tin | |
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📈 CHARTED | How Mark Zuckerberg lost $60 billion in five years - AR and VR sales are way behind what has been predicted over the years. | | |
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 | MORE META NEWS |
|  | Zuckerberg approved Meta's use of 'pirated' books to train AI models, authors claim | Sarah Silverman and others file court case claiming CEO approved use of dataset despite warnings |
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| Some users are ditching Meta's apps after its shift to right-wing thinking on moderation and diversity. [NBC News] Mark Zuckerberg's move to make Meta more Trump-y reportedly began after his Thanksgiving visit to Mar-a-Lago. [New York Times $$$] Former Meta employees say Meta's moderation teams were already in Texas, and Zuckerberg's talk of moving them there was just a bid to gain Trump's approval. [The Guardian] There are fears removing fact-checkers will make it harder for older Facebook-users to tell the difference between truth and fiction. [The Guardian] Mark Zuckerberg reportedly blamed former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg for an inclusivity initiative that encouraged employees' self-expression in the workplace, when he met with controversial Trump loyalist Stephen Miller. [New York Times $$$] A union representing some of Meta's UK staff has expressed concern over the company's moderation and diversity changes. [The Guardian] A senior UK cabinet minister has promised not to dilute new online safety measures despite Mark Zuckerberg's attacks on countries 'censoring' content. [ The Guardian] Meta has refused to offer a timeline for its promised account portability feature on Threads. [TechCrunch] Meta has added 200 megawatts of solar to its 12 gigawatt renewable energy portfolio. [TechCrunch]
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💥 EVEN MORE SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS & UPDATES |  | 'Absolutely heartbreaking': the dark side of family vlogging | Troubling new HBO docuseries An Update on Our Family looks at YouTube families and Myka Stauffer, the mom who 'rehomed' her adopted son |
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| An Instagram-inspired app using Bluesky content has launched in reaction to Meta's 'anti-woke' changes. [Gizmodo] Snapchat has pledged $5 million in aid after the Los Angeles fires. [Social Media Today] …and YouTube is donating $15 million in LA wildfire relief, and offering support for creators days before TikTok ban. [CNBC] Substack is offering a $25,000 prize to the 'creative genius' who can make a TikTok video that sparks a trend of encouraging TikTok creators to switch to Substack. [Fast Company] LinkedIn has launched a new promotional campaign to highlight its ad targeting options. [Social Media Today] YouTube star Ms. Rachel is coming to Netflix. [The Verge]
| New features and tests: | Substack now lets all publishers broadcast live video. [Engadget] Openvibe, a Bluesky and Mastodon client. has added notification support. [9to5Google]
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📰 WEEKEND READS | Geekout's pick of the best longer reads to sink into over the weekend: |  | What Happened When an Extremely Offline Person Tried TikTok | In 2016, I went viral for telling people to quit social media. In 2024, I ignored my own advice. |
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😳 AND FINALLY… | "A 28-year-old woman with a busy social life spends hours on end talking to her AI boyfriend for advice and consolation. And yes, they do have sex." 😳 |  | She Is in Love With ChatGPT |
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📅 BACK NEXT WEEK… | …and you're all up to date! | Okay, I'm off to get ready for streaming the first episode of season 2 of the absolutely brilliant Apple TV+ show Severance tonight. | Now that's what I call a good night in! | Matt will be back with you next week, same time, same place. 👌 | – Martin |
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