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Creator Weekly: YouTube Effect Maker, Reels Voice Translation, Photos Content Credentials

Creator Weekly: YouTube Effect Maker, Reels Voice Translation, Photos Content Credentials

Peggy K
August 23, 2025

Hello creators! This week was the big Made by Google event. While the focus was new hardware, Google used the opportunity to announce new AI and Photos features. There are updates for YouTube, Instagram, WordPress, Workspace and more. (It’s a long one this week!)

🔴 Join me live on Sunday to chat about this week’s updates
✅ What do you know about live streaming platforms? Take this week’s quiz.

Top news and updates this week

YouTube Effect Maker, a tool for creating Shorts effects, is now available to many more creators.
Meta AI can now automatically translate and dub Reels on Instagram and Facebook. It’s just Spanish to/from English, for now.
The new Pixel 10 Pro camera has 100x Pro Res Zoom, 4x telephoto lens and can take 50MP photos.
Google Photos will let you edit your photos by describing what you want changed,
Google is embracing C2PA Content Credentials. These track AI and non-AI edits to your images. This is built into the new Pixel 10 camera and is now supported by Google Photos.
The Whisk experimental image generator is now available in 55 new countries. You can even animate the images you create.
Bluesky is blocking access to users in Mississippi, due to new expansive age-verification requirements.
YouTube is running an experiment to improve the clarity of Shorts using “traditional machine learning technology” (but not generative AI).
YouTube Studio comment moderation now lets you select ALL comments to moderate.
YouTube Brand Connect lets creators tag brand partners in videos.
Videos in Google Drive can be edited in Google Vids with the click of a button (requires Workspace or Google AI subscription).
Instagram lets you link Reels to other Reels, so you can create a series.
Instagram improved Reel insights with Retention and Skip Rate metrics.
Twitch is rolling out its less disruptive clipping flow that lets you create a clip while still watching the stream.
TikTok limits posts to 5 hashtags, has added Campus Verification for university students, and is unlikely to be banned in September.
Google Search AI Mode is available globally and wants to help you make dinner plans.
The WordPress(dot)com Jetpack mobile app now lets you view stats and manage your Subscribers and visitors from the WordPress(dot)com Reader.
Beehiiv just updated their newsletter dashboard, making it easier to see your stats.
LinkedIn may limit visibility of comments from Pages with “excessive comment creation or use of an automation tool”.
You can listen to Google Docs documents (if you have access to Gemini in Workspace)
Gemini Live has integration with Google Calendar, Maps, Tasks and Keep.
Adobe Illustrator (beta) has a Turntable feature that lets you rotate 2D images in 3 dimensions.
Plus more for AdSense, Calendar, Slides, Spotify, journalism and more.

🗓 Ten Years Ago This Week: A win for diversity

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing highlights from 2015.

In August 2015 the anti-diversity Sad Puppies tried to take over the science fiction Hugo Awards. The award voters made clear that that was not going to happen. There was also some pushback against Gamergate harassment campaigns and some of the worst subReddits were shut down.

But was it a real culture shift? Read more.

To Do &New Tips and Tutorials

Are you familiar with YouTube’s AI-powered creative tools? In last week’s OnEBoard Chat I shared how to use Dream Screen for Shorts, the Inspiration brainstorming tool and auto-dubbing.

(For technical background you can learn more about how Google developed YouTube’s real-time generative AI effects.)

To Do & Try

Whisk has expanded to 77 new countries.This is an experimental Google AI tool that lets you create images from text and image prompts. The Whisk Animate feature then lets you animate your images (but you can only create 5 videos per month for free). Learn more about Whisk. Try Whisk in Google Labs.

YouTube Effect Maker for Shorts

YouTube Effect Maker is now available to more Creators.

This is a desktop web-based tool that lets you create, publish and manage effects for YouTube Shorts. It’s available at effects.youtube.com

To access you must have advanced features enabled for your channel, and be located in one of YouTube’s 85 supported regions.

Published effects are available to all creators in the Shorts editor. You can also showcase your effects on your channel’s Home tab.

Learn more: Getting started with Effect Maker

YouTube is also testing the option to create generative AI effects. They say, “GenAI effect creation tools are coming to a small group of creators over the coming weeks with plans to expand to all Effect Maker creators later this year. Effect creators can build interactive and personalized effects with these generative tools - step into fantastical scenes, morph into imaginative characters, and so much more.”

Voice Translation of Reels

Meta AI voice translation of Reels (automatic dubbing, plus optional lip syncing) between English and Spanish is available to eligible public Facebook and Instagram accounts.

The feature is available where Meta AI is available. That excludes European Union countries, Texas, & Illinois, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Turkey, South Africa, and Nigeria.
Facebook accounts must have 1000 followers and either be a Page or use professional mode.
All public Instagram accounts can access the feature.
It supports translation for up to two speakers.
Meta recommends face-to-camera and speaking clearly.
Translations and lip syncs can be reviewed before publishing.
Viewers will be shown the Reel in their preferred language, and they can turn off translation.

Facebook Pages can now upload up to 20 of their own dubbed audio tracks to a Reel. This can be done in the Reels composer in Meta Business Suite.

Made By Google AI Photo Features

This week was the annual Made by Google event. Google announced the Pixel 10 phone, updated watch and PixelBuds. (You can access all the news, launches and demos in a NotebookLM notebook).

There are some nice-sounding hardware and software updates for the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro camera.

The Pixel 10 Pro camera has a 5x telephoto lens, Super Res Zoom up to 20x, and Pro Res Zoom up to 100x (using a diffusion model for processing). It has an advanced ultrawide lens for macro photos, and can take 50MP high-resolution photos.
Camera Coach uses Gemini to guide you to take better photos.
Panorama Mode supports 5x telephoto panoramas up to 100MP resolution.
Auto Best Take takes the best group photo by analyzing up to 150 frames in a few seconds. It can also blend frames to create a Best Take.

Edit Photos with your voice

Google Photos will let you edit your images by describing the changes you want to make using text or voice. It doesn’t have to be detailed -- you can ask for your photos just to “look better”. The Gemini-powered conversational photo editor will first be available on the Pixel 10 in the US.

Content Credentials

C2PA Content Credentials are built into the native Pixel 10 camera app. This adds metadata documenting both AI and non-AI edits.

Google Photos also now supports C2PA Content Credentials, in addition to IPTC metadata for AI-edited images and SynthID for images edited with the Reimagine tool. This will roll out gradually on Android and iOS.

Mississippi Loses Access to Bluesky

Last week the US Supreme Court allowed Mississippi’s law requiring age verification for social sites to go into effect. This requires that all users must be age-verified to use social sites, and minors must have parental consent.

In response, Bluesky is blocking all Mississippi users, noting “Building the required verification systems, parental consent workflows, and compliance infrastructure would require significant resources that our small team is currently unable to spare as we invest in developing safety tools and features for our global community, particularly given the law's broad scope and privacy implications.”

I think we’re going to see more sites blocking whole states and countries as more laws requiring age verification are passed.

None of the big platforms have announced the exact steps they are taking yet, but presumably they will have to soon if there aren’t additional legal challenges.

And I can’t imagine adults in Mississippi are happy that they will have to go through age verification on every social site they use (Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, etc.).

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

Recently some YouTube viewers noticed Shorts looked a little “off”. There was widespread speculation that YouTube “AI upscaling” the Shorts videos. When YouTube finally responded, they said they are not using generative AI, but rather “running an experiment on select YouTube Shorts that uses traditional machine learning technology to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos during processing (similar to what a modern smartphone does when you record a video)”.
That certainly sounds at least AI-adjacent. And it misses the larger point that they are changing the look of videos without Creator permission.

YouTube has improved comment moderation in YouTube Studio. You can now select ALL comments and take actions like remove or report. Learn more from Creator Insider

YouTube has a new option to limit comments on your videos to subscribers only. This is currently only available at the individual video level. You can edit settings in bulk from the Content tab in YouTube Studio. This is currently only available in Thailand on desktop and mobile. Learn more from Creator Insider.

YouTube’s conversational AI tool, which lets you ask questions about videos, is rolling out to more users in the US.

YouTube Brand Connect now lets creators tag brand partners during video upload or editing existing videos. That lets Creators associate a particular video with a Brand, rather than sharing your entire channel. Learn more from Creator Insider.

YouTube Music is almost 10 years old, and this week they celebrated by adding new listener features: share comments on albums and playlists, taste match playlists (“automatically updated daily based on the music taste of everyone who has joined them”), notifications of new releases and events, upcoming concert listings (in partnership with Bandsintown), new listener badges, and music video watch milestones.

Ebi Atawodi, Product Management Lead for YouTube Studio, shared the core philosophy behind the platform. They see it as being a “creative partner” with YouTuber Creators both big and small.

If you have access to Google Vids, it can now be used to easily edit videos in Google Drive. When you view your video in Drive, there will be an option to open the file in Vids. This creates a new Vids file where you can trim the clip, add music, text and other features. Vids supports MP4, Quicktime, OGG, and WebM videos up to 35 minutes long and 4GB. This is available to Google Workspace customers, and Google One AI subscribers.

You can now link Instagram Reels to each other. This can be used for multi-part video or a related series. You can link the Reels while adding captions or by tapping the overflow menu in previously shared Reels. Since Instagram doesn’t have playlists, this is the first feature to let you connect groups of your Reels to each other.

Instagram has added new metrics to better understand your Reels views. Retention shows the percentage of viewers that continue to watch at a given point in the video. They are also replacing the View Rate metric with Skip Rate. That shows the percentage of viewers that skipped the Reel in the first 3 seconds (View Rate was the inverse, the percentage that watched longer than 3 seconds).

Twitch is rolling out its new “less disruptive clipping flow” that lets users “clip, edit, & share” while continuing to watch your livestream. The original clipping flow is still available if you want to toggle back. This was originally launched in May as an experiment.

Twitch simultaneously creates a landscape and vertical Clip. The vertical clips can be shared directly to YouTube Shorts, TikTok or Instagram Reels.

Twitch updated Moderation Settings with a clear visualization of your current settings.

Will TikTok be banned when the latest ban enforcement deadline arrives on September 17? Probably not, as the Whitehouse just created a TikTok account.

TikTok has a new Campus Verification feature. Students can verify their status through myunidays and connect with classmates by graduation year and interests.

TikTok is letting some creators add Viewer Wishes to live streams. This lets streamers set up “performative responses” for specific donations. So if a viewer sends a heart, the streamer might do a little dance.

TikTok has implemented a 5 hashtag limit on posts. If you try to add more, you get a notice that suggests “use accurate hashtags to get more views”.

StreamYard published a recap of their new features added in 2025.

StreamYard has better organized visual features, like virtual backgrounds and appearance enhancement.

Web Publishers, Newsletters and Search

AdSense for Search Restricted Access Features (RAFs) come into effect August 25. If you use AdSense for Search on your website, check to see if your account is eligible.

Google Search AI Mode is now available globally and is getting agentic capabilities, starting with making dinner reservations. You can also share the AI Mode response with a link (in the US) if you want to use it to collaborate with friends or family.

The Jetpack mobile app for WordPress(dot)com has a new Subscriber dashboard. You can see information for email newsletter subscribers and visitors from WordPress(dot)com Reader. You can see profile information, demographics, open and click-through data and manage your subscribers.

If you use WordPress(dot)com as your WordPress site host, they have made improvements to the Staging Site experience. A Staging Site lets you fiddle with themes and plugins before making the changes public. The updates include selective sync between staging and production, improved layout and navigation. Staging Sites are available with Business and Commerce plans.

The Beehiiv newsletter platform just launched an updated dashboard, making it easier to see and understand your newsletter’s stats.

Substack creators can now direct US readers to subscribe on the web, bypassing the iOS app store fees. This follows the ruling in Epic Games lawsuit against Apple that forced Apple to allow external payment links.

Instagram is still working on its bonus program, including transparent eligibility requirements. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said, “It has to make sense for us as a business. And right now it doesn’t yet.”

X says “The UK Online Safety Act’s mandate over "harmful" content empowers regulators to arbitrate speech, potentially restricting debates on controversial topics. This could result in algorithmic biases that favor certain views, undermining free expression for all users. We call for collaboration to safeguard liberties while protecting users.” (It’s not clear if they are submitting a formal legal challenge. It does appear they are trying to comply with the law.)

LinkedIn says it may limit how many comments a Page can make in a certain time period, and “if we detect excessive comment creation or use of an automation tool, we may limit the visibility of those comments.” That may help combat fake engagement on the platform. (Related: LinkedIn is the fakest platform of them all: It was meant for professionals--but it is filled with chatbots )

Communication and Collaboration

All users will get a Google Calendar pre-configured booking page entry that will make scheduling appointments with external users easier. (I’m not sure if this is limited to Workspace accounts. Appointment scheduling is available to everyone.)

Sometimes the tiniest updates are the best. In Google Slides, moving an object with the arrow key now moves it one pixel. You can hold down the shift key to move it greater distances. This is how most other image editing tools work, so it will be much less confusing moving between platforms.

You can now listen to articles in Google Docs. Readers can go to Tools > Audio and use the “Listen to this tab” option. Authors can add a “Listen to this tab” button from the Insert > Audio Button menu. Learn more. Requires an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI subscription.

In Google Chat there’s a new Gemini-powered option to summarize unread messages. Available to Google Workspace users.

More AI Updates

Google AI Ultra subscribers are getting double the AI credits. They can be used for generating videos in Flow or images in Whisk.

Gemini Live has several updates. When you use your camera, it will highlight things on your screen. Google has integrated Calendar, Maps, Tasks and Keep, and soon will be able to access the Messages, Phone and Clock apps. Plus Gemini can now speak more naturally.

Among other AI-powered features, the new Pixel 10 will translate phone calls in real time “in what sounds like the speaker’s voice”. It will work to and from English and Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian and Indonesian.

Adobe Illustrator has a new Turntable feature that lets you rotate 2D vector art in 3 dimensions. This is available in the latest Illustrator beta version. Learn more.

Did you ever use Otter AI to transcribe and summarize video meetings? This news is for you: Class-action suit claims Otter AI secretly records private work conversations

Anthropic AI Class Action: Important Information for Authors from the Authors Guild. If Anthropic downloaded your book from a pirate sharing site, you may be a member of this class. See the link for details.