Welcome back to the Interhacktives newsletter Hot or Not! For the first time Twitter has not appeared in the list! That doesn’t mean nothing has happened (something is always happening) but it's nice to have a bit of break from all the drama. And make sure to read to the end to find out what Interhactives has been up to this week!Â
🧊🔽 TikTokÂ
Trouble is brewing for TikTok. This week there has been continued scrutiny on the platform’s lack of action regarding the Nicola Bulley case. And the security fears are growing. The EU Commision is the latest Western official body to ban the app from staff phones. Oddly they’ve allowed 3 weeks for the ban to take effect – clearly the imminent security threat isn’t that imminent? And now Rishi is facing calls to implement similar bans here. The main message for us is not to put all your short-video eggs in the one ByteDance shaped basket. Â
🧊🔼 MetaÂ
It’s been an odd and busy week over at Meta. Post the announcement of their Meta-verified searches for how to delete Facebook and Instagram sky-rocketed over 1500%. Brands have found their engagement is down on where it was a couple of years ago. But there’s some good(ish) news as well. Their snappily named ‘Community Standards Enforcement Report’ showed they were taking more action on harmful content and spam. Â
🔥🔼 AccessibilityÂ
Discussions about accessibility are having a bit of moment as a couple days ago YouGov released figures showing 61% of young people watch TV and film with captions on, proving again how important it is to caption your content. YouTube is trialing multi-language audio tracks, making videos more accessible to a global audience. Unfortunately for Twitter they’re not looking great on this front as they’ve removed captioning for Spaces on iOS and they’re broken everywhere else. If you’re after the best tips to make sure your content is accessible, check out our how-to guide! Â
🔥🔼 NewslettersÂ
Not that I’m biased... but newsletters are hot this week. What’s New in Publishing’s breakdown of the INMA report on newsletters is required reading for publishers. LinkedIn has added scheduling and other features to their newsletter tool and WhatsApp is also reportedly working on a project. All in all, newsletters aren’t going anywhere (and neither is this one!) Â
What’s new with InterhacktivesÂ
We’ve articles up on the Interhacktives website on Twitter 2FA and TikTok’s creativity beta. The team is working hard on our social channels so be sure to follow us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In exciting news, the podcast will also be coming back, so watch this space! We’ll have more details next week. Â
And that’s everything we have for you this evening. As always, I hope you’ve had a good weekend and I’ll see you next time.Â
Katie Jones Â
@katiejeanjones_Â