In yet another eventful week, there are new restrictions on ads and monetization for Russian creators, the Substack newsletter service is starting to look more like a blogging platform, plus new creator features for YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and more.  

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Sign Up

YouTube is offering a series of eight free Creator Masterclasses starting March 22. You can sign up for one or all of them. Topics include live streaming, visual style, Shorts, copyright, monetization, branding and the algorithm. You must have at least 1000 subscribers to register.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Meta, Google, and other platforms have been rapidly updating their policies for creators, advertisers and content in and about Russia and Ukraine. Below are some of the latest updates.

Advertising and Monetization

Google is now “pausing the creation of new Russian accounts on AdSense, AdMob, and Google Ad Manager.”  This is in addition to pausing Google ads serving on websites and YouTube in Russia, and pausing ads from Russian advertisers worldwide. Learn more.

Current Russian AdSense publishers and YouTube Partners can continue to monetize views and visitors from outside of Russian.

Russian Twitch streamers are no longer being paid as banks and payment platforms like Paypal are no longer available. Will the same thing happen to YouTube Partners and AdSense publishers on the next payment cycle? I suspect yes.

This is in addition to limitations on Russian ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit and other platforms. 

Content and policy

YouTube’s hate speech policy prohibits content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events. They are removing content about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that violates that policy. They have removed over 1000 channels, and more than 15,000 videos for related community guidelines violations.

The Whitehouse is briefing TikTok influencers about the United States’ strategic goals in the Ukraine and answered questions about aid and military options. This was organized through the non-profit Gen Z For Change.

TikTok announced they are suspending live streaming and new video content uploads in Russia, while reviewing the implications of Russia’s new “fake news” law.  The new law penalizes posting “false” information about the military with fines or up to 15 years in prison. They have also started labeling content uploaded by state-run media (it is not clear if this will apply in China).

Facebook has updated its moderation guidelines to allow violent speech towards Russian soldiers or Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko by users in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. They will not allow violent speech towards Russian civilians. 

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri responded to Russia’s plan to cut off Instagram access on Monday, March 14, saying “this is wrong”. He notes 80% of Russian users follow an account from outside their country. To help keep users safe, on private accounts based in Ukraine and Russia Instagram is hiding information about people’s followers, who they’re following, and people who are following each other.

Also, content from or linking to Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik are blocked on YouTube and Reddit, demoted and labeled on Instagram and Facebook.  RT and Sputnik are fully blocked in the EU.

Women's History Month

If you are a woman, and an entrepreneur, creator, or otherwise website-wanter, pitch your idea to Namecheap, and you could win a domain and hosting for a year. 

Twitch is highlighting women streamers, hosting panels and bringing together the community for Women’s history month.

Flickr is celebrating women photographers in Explore, and encouraging women to share their work with the #ThroughHerLens or #ThroughTheirLens tag. There’s discussion on Flickr Social.

TikTok is curating content on their Discover page to highlight a new women-creator-related-theme each week. This week is #WomenInGaming to be followed by #WomenOwnedBusinesses.

Meta is highlighting women shaping their “metaverse”.

Pinterest is highlighting women-owned businesses on the platform.

This Week's Updtes

YouTube and Video

YouTube will now send you an email notification when they take action on a video you flagged.

You can now appoint moderators for your Instagram Live livestream. Mods can report comments, remove viewers from Live and turn off comments for a viewer. 

YouTube’s Creator Insider is answering viewer questions. One takeaway: experiment!

Web Content

Substack, the newsletter platform, is looking more and more like a blogging platform. This week they launched mobile apps.  Instead of subscribing to individual newsletters by email, the app lets you explore the whole “Substack ecosystem”. With newsletters readable on individual post pages with comments, it sure looks like blogging to me.  The default is for app users to not get emails. You can download for iOS now, or sign up on the Android waiting list.

WordPress now offers a whole bunch of new themes designed for the new Full Site Editing tools. The tools let you edit headers, footers, menus, and theme elements by simply dragging and dropping.

Social Media: Facebook and Instagram

Instagram launched Creator Lab, where you can find successful Instagrammers talking about their path to success.

Instagram’s standalone Hyperlapse and Boomerang apps are no longer supported and removed from the app store. The Boomerang feature is still available in the Stories editor. 

Instagram has added new enhanced tags, so that a creator’s self-designated professional category will show when tagged in a post. So, for example, a photographer or makeup artist will have their profession shown in the tag on the photo they collaborated on.

Facebook announced new community moderation tools, including automatically approving and declining membership requests, the ability to temporarily suspend members, a better organized Admin Home, and the option to automatically block posts with links to disinformation. Plus Admins can now share a community with a QR code or by email.

Social Media: Twitter

Twitter launched a new Creator Dashboard where you can view your Super Follow earnings and subscribers. Super Follows are currently limited to US creators who are at least 18 years old, have 10,000 subscribers, and who have Tweeted at least 25 times in the past 30 days.

On Twitter, you can now request to join a restricted community. Previously such communities were invite-only. It’s still not clear how engaged community members are, or whether most see it as one more place to reshare their existing content.

Twitter Spaces is at SXSW, listen to their discussions about using Spaces for impact, building community on Twitter, and more.

Twitter wants to add 100 million more daily users by the end of 2023, and they want people to participate, not just scroll. To that end they want to make Twitter more “participatory and approachable”, and to that end are focusing on developing features like Topics, Communities and Spaces.

Social Media: Other Sites

Reddit now offers Creator Statistics to all original posters and subreddit moderators. Performance metrics include total post views, upvote rate, community karma earned and total shares. The post details page is available on posts with at least 10 views and can be accessed for 45 days.

TikTok launched their own music marketing and distribution platform SoundOn. Artists can use the platform to upload music to TikTok, Spotify, Apple Music and other music platforms fee free (for now).

Photos

Pixel phone or Google One users are getting an updated version of Portrait Blur in Google Photos that will not only blur the background of people, but also pets, food and plants. It works even on old photos.

Productivity

The GBoard keyboard on Android now includes grammar correction (which I will find helpful!).

The Emoji Kitchen mashups from GBoard now include a couple of thousand new images,  plus Pixel phone users can create stickers based on what you are typing.

What else I’m reading

From Vogue Business: The big influencer trust issue -- and the beauty brands trying to save it.

Rebecca Jennings at Vox asks “When did everybody start calling themselves content creators?”

Food and recipe community Chowhound is shutting down after nearly 25 years. Founder Jim Leff reflects on its origins and demise.

Learning more about the history and arts of Mali and Timbuktu from Google Arts and Culture.

Image: Shamrocks by jeonsango on Pixabay. Pixabay License allows commercial use without attribution.