Creator Weekly: YouTube Live Ads, Canva Offline, AdSense Offerwall

What's new this week? There are updates from Canva, YouTube, AdSense, Google Search, video and image editing tools and more. 

Join OnEBoard this week for our annual Earth Day special. (Note the later than usual time for the live stream)

Video Tip: Does Gemini use your emails for training? 

Ads shouldn't interrupt live stream engagement. YouTube will automatically create a personal ad-free window right after purchase of Super Chat, Super Stickers, or gifts (automatic ads must be enabled). And when Live Chat engagement is "at its peak" ads will be held back for everyone. 

The YouTube Shorts music audio library is rolling out to the YouTube Create video editing app. “Use "Slip Edit" to find the best segment of a song, or "Find Beats" to add visual markers for perfectly timed cuts.” These tracks are ONLY licensed for Shorts. Videos must be directly published to Shorts. If you save a video longer than 15 seconds to your device, licensed tracks will be removed.

YouTube is testing image Posts and carousels in the Shorts feed, "the first of many updates coming to Posts as we continue to expand the format."  Features: Up to 10 images, add text overlays, and add royalty free music.

You can now set your YouTube Shorts Feed viewing time limit to zero. This does not totally remove or hide Shorts from the YouTube app (despite some click bait headlines), but you may not see them on the Home tab.

Google Vids has expanded AI voice-overs to 24 languages and 30 conversational voices to choose from. Voices are also more expressive, letting you include instructions (be excited!), bracket notation for pacing (like [pause]), and sound effects (like [laugh]). These features are available to everyone, including free Google accounts.

StreamYard now lets you customize your QR code with your own branding. 

Offerwall in AdSense is now generally available. This is a popup overlay that prevents site visitors from viewing the content until they complete an action like watching an ad or giving you their email. It's quite intrusive so consider carefully before implementing. 

Google Search spam policy now explicitly prohibits back button hijacking, where clicking the browser back button does not take you to your previous page. 

Chrome on desktop will now open links side-by-side with the Search AI Mode results. It will answer your additional questions "from the context of the page and across the web". Will this encourage people to actually click the links more often? That remains to be seen. 

Did you get an email from Google Search Console about long-verified website properties “starting” to get impressions? You aren't the only one. Google's John Mueller confirmed they were sent in error.

Google shared their 2025 Ads Safety Report, with a focus on AI enforcement. For Publisher (AdSense) enforcement, AI systems “contributed to” detection and enforcement on more than 97% of the new than 480 million pages active in 2025. The top policy violation by far? Sexual content. See the link for ad enforcement stats. 

This week was Canva Create, which Canva uses to make big product announcements. 

Alex Heath interviewed Canva’s CEO Melanie Perkins on the Access podcast, who said “If you come into Canva and you hate Al, you actually can just completely use Canva exactly the way you always use it.”

Adobe Stock now has AI Studio built in, so stock images can be easily tweaked, so “you can turn that almost-perfect content into exactly what you need.” There are easy commands to change the color or mood, and you can easily pair AI audio with video. You can also animate still images into 5 second clips. 

DeVinci Resolve 21 public beta is now available for free. Feature highlights: 

Edits mobile video editing app has new features:

Google Photos has an improved cropping experience, with more accurate image previews, more reliable cropping and rotation, and smoother visuals.

You can now change the video playback speed in Google Photos for Android from 0.25X to 2X. 

Personal Intelligence in Gemini is now integrated with Nano Banana 2, which can use your personal context to create more personalized images. If you connect your Google Photos to Personal Intelligence, it can use your people labels to generate images with you, your family and friends. 

Adobe Firefly has made it easier to tweak images so they are exactly what you want. 

Instagram now lets you adjust topics for Your Algorithm for Explore in addition to Reels. This is available in English. 

If you are in the EU or UK you can optionally give Facebook access to your device camera roll. In return Facebook will suggest images to share, and let you create AI powered “fun collages and edits”. They only use your images to improve Meta AI if you “choose to publish or share them in interactions with any AI at Meta feature”. 

Tumblr apologized for a rash of incorrect suspensions. The trans community felt disproportionately affected and Tumblr noted ‘they have the highest proportion of LGBTQIA+ folks on social media, so ... those communities might feel that disproportionate impact.”

Tumblr also say that profile information isn't used in moderation decisions. "Going forward, we’re committed to finding a better balance: being more transparent with our community about issues that matter, even when we can’t share everything."

X wants to reward original content, reducing Creator revenue sharing payouts for reposts and gratuitous use of BREAKING in headlines.

If you find yourself using the same AI prompt in Chrome over and over, you can now save your prompt as a Skill. There's also a library of ready-to-use Skills built-in to Chrome to get you started. 

Leo Wattenberg: Make Art, Not Content —Or: AI Slop doesn’t threaten Artists, Capitalism does. This visual is spot on: 

As for the big social media platforms, I see them perform similarly to Goethe’s Magician’s Apprentice, initially welcoming the flood of content, but eventually drowning under the weight of petabytes of AI-generated content clogging up every pipeline on their site. 

Video documentary maker Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) visited Beast Studios. He talks about why he (and others) were invited, and reflects on creating content, fandom and what's wrong with Beast Games.

Thanks for reading! 🏵️