Creator Weekly: YouTube Hype, Facebook Unoriginal Content, Edits Royalty-Free Music

Author

Peggy K
July 19, 2025

Dear readers, I hope you are having a fabulous summer weekend! This week there are updates for YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitch, LinkedIn, Beehiiv and more. 

Top news and updates this week

  • YouTube Hype is expanding to 19 new countries in the EU, Asia and Mexico. (It’s not available in the US or Canada yet).

  • Facebook is cracking down on unoriginal content.

  • YouTube is experimenting with title testing, to go along with thumbnail testing. 

  • Twitch added categories at the top of the Clips feed.

  • Edits video editing app added royalty free music, keyframes for stickers and text, and new voice effects. 

  • LinkedIn is testing highlighting trends within the (US) video feed. Not surprisingly, current trends include topics like  “side hustle guide”.

  • TikTok Songwriter Features launched in closed beta. If you are a songwriter, add yourself to the waitlist. 

  • Beehiiv’s slick new website builder is out of beta and available to all accounts. 

  • Reddit requires UK users to verify age to view mature content.

  • Discord introduced Orbs. Complete quests to earn Orbs to spend on Nitro or other Discord Ship items.

  • You can now share photos in Threads DMs. 

  • Instagram trial reels are now available to all public accounts with 1000+ followers. If you regularly post reels, use this as a growth hack. 

  • Flickr now supports Creative Commons 4.0 licenses.

  • Easily share Google Calendar booking pages using Gmail.

  • The Gemini Drops website has the latest Gemini updates. 

  • Plus the pivot to AI, Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation, a photographer-created observatory and more. 

🗓 Ten Years Ago This Week: Windows 10 is free! Or is it?

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

In July 2015 Microsoft launched Windows 10 as a free upgrade. The idea was to get users to update their devices with genuine software in a timely way. It also helped bring users into the latest Windows ecosystem, with the new Edge browser, Bing Search, Office 365 paid subscriptions and more. 

So was this really free? Not exactly. The cost is built into the hardware you buy. Plus Microsoft profits from the subscriptions you pay for the ads you view searching with Bing and the information they gather about you in Edge. 

And now this is the norm for Windows, macOS, chromeOS, Android, iOS and other operating systems. 

To Do and Try

At the beginning of June, Google added the option to share NotebookLM notebooks publicly. Google is now promoting this feature with expert curated notebooks, including the complete works of Shakespeare, wellbeing and longevity science information, public company earnings reports and more. Some notebooks were created in collaboration with The Economist and The Atlantic. You can use NotebookLM to ask questions, create summaries, and listen to pre-generated Audio Overviews.

YouTube Hype Expansion

YouTube Hype launched in September 2024, allowing viewers in Turkey, Taiwan and Brazil to “hype” their favorite videos. Top hyped videos appear on a leaderboard.

  • Only videos published in the past 7 days on channels in the Youtube Partner Program with 500-500,000 subscribers can be hyped.

  • Leaderboards are country-specific.

  • Smaller channels get a boost in points to even the playing field.

  • Top hyped videos get a special badge. 

  • Viewers can Hype a video 3 times per week. YouTube may allow people to pay for more Hypes.

This week YouTube Hype is expanding to 19 new markets, including countries in the EU, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mexico, and Brazil. 

Cost and no cost: Brazil, Turkey

No cost: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Taiwan

Facebook cracks down on unoriginal content

Facebook is taking “strong measures” to crack down on unoriginal content. Accounts that repeatedly reuse someone else’s photos, videos or text will lose access to monetization (seemingly temporarily) and everything they share will “receive reduced distribution”. 

“Unoriginal content reuses or repurposes another creator’s content repeatedly without crediting them, taking advantage of their creativity and hard work.”

They will also try to reduce distribution of duplicate videos “so that original creators can get the visibility that they deserve.”

Facebook says they are also working on a system to add attribution to the original creator. 

It’s not clear to me how exactly Facebook determines which account is the original source. Is it the first upload on Facebook? That isn’t going to help prevent unauthorized reuse of content from other platforms.

But this should at least slow down some accounts that only re-upload other creators' videos and photos. 

Facebook has tips for creators to ensure post reach isn’t limited. It’s not just about original content, but also not including links or too many hashtags.

  • Post original content (duh!)

  • Make “meaningful enhancements” to content you are authorized to use. That could be creative editing, voiceover, or commentary. It’s not just compiling a bunch of clips. 

  • Tell a story, and don’t post “super short” videos. 

  • Don’t post content with third-party watermarks (like TikTok videos). 

  • Post only relevant captions with no links, “minimal use of capital letters” and no more than five hashtags. (This is not the platform to use to get people to visit your site.)

You can check your Professional Dashboard for information on why a post’s reach may be limited. 

And the Facebook Support page shows your account and monetization status.

This puts Facebook’s monetization policy more in line with YouTube’s updated inauthentic content policy, which emphasizes original content for monetization.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

YouTube is experimenting with title testing, to go along with thumbnail A/B/C "test and compare".  Creators have been hoping for this option, as titles and thumbnails often work together.  This is currently available to "a small percentage of creators".

Fast Company: YouTube Shorts algorithm steers users away from political content, study finds. Viewers of Shorts end up watching more funny and entertaining content than politics. This is due to focus on increasing engagement, not “censoring” political videos.

Twitch added SubFeeds - categories - at the top of the Clips feed.

There are more new features in Edits, the free video editing app from Instagram. There is royalty free music, so you don’t have to worry about copyright issues. You can now use keyframes with stickers, text, cutouts and overlays for precision animations (iOS, soon for Android). There are ten new voice effects. There is royalty free music, so you don’t have to worry about copyright issues. 

LinkedIn is testing highlighting trends within the video feed. US users may see trend buttons at the top of videos. Tap to see related videos and maybe get inspired. Current trends are VERY LinkedIn: “Side Hustle Guide”, “Email sign-offs”, “Work-life balance”, “Day in the life”. (The linked article also has tips for “crafting verbal hooks that work”).

TikTok launched TikTok Songwriter Features. Songwriters can apply for a Songwriter account, which adds a Songwriter label on your profile and a music tab highlighting tracks they have written or co-written. This is currently available to a limited number of songwriters in closed beta. Anyone interested should fill out the waitlist form at the above link.

StreamYard can now livestream to your Brightcove corporate video hub. 

Google Search Console now shows Discussion Forum rich results as a search appearance. This is relevant to you if you run your own forum with user-generated posts. It’s not for social media, site owner-authored content (that’s more a blog) or user reviews - those all have their own structured data markup types. Learn more.

Beehiiv's slick new website builder is out of beta and available to everyone (including free plan). You can create multiple landing pages, embed podcasts, promote events and more. It blurs the lines between a newsletter and a blog you can subscribe to by email. Is there a difference?

SEO Lily Ray writes: AI search is booming, but SEO is still not dead. The takeaway message: “the content that performs best in AI Overviews or receives citations from ChatGPT is, more often than not, the same high-quality, well-optimized content that excels in traditional Google Search.”

Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine shared the story of Medium’s turnaround from losing millions per month to making a small, but sure, profit. They improved subscription purchases by stopping monetizing spammy get-rich-quick content. They also found that publications from media companies weren’t a good fit. He writes “Medium is best when it is giving voice to people who aren’t trying to be professional content creators and we think those voices (you) often have the most valuable stories to tell.”
There’s also a lot of detail about dealing with investors which may be a bit too much inside baseball for many folks. 

Photos and Image Design

Flickr now supports Creative Commons 4.0 licenses. It has a simpler attribution requirement and is more internationally enforceable. It also launched in 2013 (!), so this has been a long time coming.

Social Media

Reddit now requires UK users to go through age verification before viewing certain “mature” content. This is in compliance with the UK Online Safety Act. Age verification is through third party company Persona (also used for Google AdSense verification and LinkedIn identity verification). There are complaints in the discussion that Persona is not GDPR compliant, but Persona says they are - this is one for regulators and lawyers to determine.

Reddit has also introduced a global option to add your birthdate to your account. This is not mandatory, however, except in the UK (for now).

Discord introduced Orbs. You can earn Orbs by completing quests, then spend the Orbs in the Discord shop on Nitro, a special Orb badge or Nameplates, Avatar Decorations, or Profile Effects (which you can get using just Orbs, no money). Current Orb quests include watching movie and video game trailers.

Meta executive Connor Hayes has been appointed as head of Threads. Up until now, Instagram  head Adam Mosseri has also been leading Threads. Mosseri said, “Threads at this point is a real platform that I want to make sure we take as seriously as our other apps, and so it needs a dedicated lead.”

You can now share photos in Threads DMs. Threads DMs launched earlier this month. Currently you can only DM someone if they follow you on Threads, or if you follow each other on Instagram.

Instagram trial reels are now available to all public accounts with at least 1,000 followers. If you set a reel as a Trial, it is only shown to people who are not already following you and does not appear on your profile. Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today explains how creators are using this feature as a growth hack, re-uploading older reels to expand your audience.

Communication and Collaboration

If you have set up Google Calendar appointment booking pages, you can now share them directly from the Gmail email composer. Learn more about bookable appointment schedules (yes, available with your free google account). 

More AI Updates and Tips

Google launched a new Gemini Drops website that makes it easy to find more information about the latest Gemini updates and features. Check it out.

New from Google Gemini: AI Mode has Deep Search with Gemini Pro 2.5 for in depth searches and AI can call local businesses for you, right from search.

More Reading and Watching

Parker Molloy: Stephen Colbert's Cancellation Is Exactly What It Looks Like. Colbert will be fine. If he decides to set up a video podcast, guests are likely to line up. But Molloy points out that 200 staffers are also losing their jobs. And billionaire manipulation of news (and entertainment) is a bad thing.

Thanks for reading! 🌼