Very Social Network

YouTube Launches Its TikTok Rival, YouTube Shorts

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 15 - YouTube Shorts will allow users, initially in India, to upload 15-second or less short-form videos using a new set of creator tools, including a multi-segment camera, similar to TikTok, speed controls, and a timer and a countdown feature. The videos can also be set to music, thanks to YouTube's access to a large library of songs that it says will continue to grow over time. These are tools common to TikTok and are the same features that Instagram recently cloned for its own TikTok rival, known as Reels.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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YouTube Hit With UK Class Action Style Suit

TECH CRUNCH - Sep 15 - Another class action style lawsuit has been lodged against YouTube in the UK alleging violations of privacy and seeking major damages. It is accusing YouTube of routinely breaking UK and European data protection laws by unlawfully targeting 5M under-13-year-olds with addictive programming and harvests their data for advertisers. The suit is being brought by international law firm Hausfeld and Foxglove, which says they're seeking damages from YouTube of ~£2.5BN.

by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Millions of TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Profiles Left Exposed

PYMNTS - Aug 24 - A database of ~235M YouTube, Instagram and TikTok profiles that was held by a now-shuttered company called Deep Social was left exposed without password protection or other authentication procedures. Deep Social provided, among other things, social media data. The company reportedly is no longer operating.

See full article at PYMNTS

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YouTube Bans 2,600 Chinese Channels For Influence Operations

CNET - Aug 7 - Some of the channels posted content about racial justice protests in the US. YouTube also took down dozens of channels linked to Russia and Iran that had apparent ties to influence campaigns.

by Richard Nieva
See full article at CNet

Steve Wozniak Sues YouTube Over Bitcoin Scam Videos

MASHABLE - July 24 - Steve Wozniak filed a lawsuit against YouTube over Bitcoin scam videos hosted on the site. The videos use Wozniak's name to trick viewers into sending Bitcoin to the scammers by promising they'll get more Bitcoin in return. Wozniak's lawyers point out that while Twitter quickly responded to its own Bitcoin scam last week, YouTube was doing nothing in order to profit off the videos. Seventeen other victims have joined Wozniak to sue YouTube. YouTube has previously defended itself against similar lawsuits by arguing that the company can't be held accountable for the content posted by its users under the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996.

by Matt Binder
See full article at Mashable

Social Networks Aim to Erase Hate But Miss the Target on Guns

ECONOTIMES - July 23 - Mark Zuckerberg recently announced plans to ban a "wider category of hateful content in ads." Twitter, YouTube and Reddit have also taken additional steps to curtail online hate, removing several inflammatory accounts. But they all overlook a gun talk. The word "gun" appears but once in Facebook's policy on "Violence and incitement" to bar the manipulation of images to include a gun to the head. And neither "guns" nor "firearms" are mentioned in Twitter's policy on "Glorifications of violence," or YouTube's guidelines on "Violent or graphic content" or within any of these networks' rules on hate speech. Gun references have become prevalent in social media dialogues involving the nationwide protests over racial injustice, police reform and the BLM movement.

by Adam G. Klein
See full article at EconoTimes

Facebook Has Declared War On YouTube

VENTURE BEAT - Feb 3 - Facebook’s autoplay feature on videos is extremely engaging. This key feature is not only pushing YouTube videos off Facebook, but also contributes to an increased rate of video watching and ad revenue from videos. YouTube reacted immediately by autoplaying the “related videos” at the end of each YouTube video play. What YouTube can do, which will have a bigger impact on numbers, is to simply activate the autoplay (not just related videos) in all embeds, without audio, just like Facebook.

by Darius Lahoutifard
See full article at Venture Beat

YouTube To Launch Original Content Effort By Year-End

BOSTON HERALD - Jan 20 - The effort will be focused on taking top native YouTube talent and giving them the financial lift to execute programming concepts they couldn't otherwise achieve. In addition to financial support, the talent involved will be able to partake of marketing help, "matchmaking with off-YouTube talent," and the company's own production facilities. The originals initiative will likely sync up with Google Preferred, an initiative YouTube announced at its "newfronts" presentation last year that allows advertisers to buy into the top 5% of its ad inventory.

by Andrew Wallenstein
See full article at The Boston Herald

YouTube And Facebook Account For A Third Of Mobile Traffic

MASHABLE - May 15 - Facebook and YouTube now account for 32% of data sent to and from mobiles, according to a report by Sandvine.

by Dennis Green
See full article at Mashable

Social Networks And Video-Sharing Sites Are Taxable In France

SOCIAL BARREL - Dec 30 - The Superior Audiovisual Council said late last week that video-sharing websites (DailyMotion, Facebook, YouTube) must pay for tax to fund the French cinema. The government revealed its idea of a 1% sales tax. The tax proposal would rake in an ~€86M per year.

by Francis Rey Balolong
See full article at Social Barrel

To Comment On YouTube With Google+ Account Only

READ WRITE - Sep 25 - YouTube will soon require all users to have a Google+ account to participate in video discussions and comments. The aim is to have higher-quality comments.

by Selena Larson
See full article at Read Write

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Russia Works With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube To Block Certain Content

RED ORBIT - Apr 1 - The Russian government is trying a new tactic for censoring certain content on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, rather than just blocking the whole site. Some sites are complying, while others are filing suit. A new law enacted in November by the Russian government gives them the formal legal authority to block Internet content that it deems illegal or harmful to children. The government has used the new law to go after Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, among others, charging the sites to take down individual posts, videos and content. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is the only site listed in the article that has refused to block most of the requested content. YouTube filed a lawsuit in Russian court in February.

by Enid Burns
See full article at Red Orbit

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Significant Social Media Facts

JEFFBULLAS.COM - Apr 24 - Statistics are used to make important decisions and social media statistics, facts and figures are often used to justify new media marketing strategies and tactics to the CEO. Here are the latest facts, figures and statistics for seven major social networks that marketers need to take notice of.

• Facebook
  - 850M monthly active
  - 250M photos uploaded every day
  - 425M mobile users

• Twitter
  - 465M accounts
  - 175M tweets a day
  - 1M accounts are added to Twitter every day

• LinkedIn
  - 2 new members join every second
  - USA leads membership at 57M, Europe has 34M members
  - $552M revenue in 2011

• YouTube
  - 3rd most visited site (Alexa)
  - 2 billion views per day
  - 44% of YouTube’s users are aged between 12 and 34

• Instagram
  - 30M users
  - The release of the Android app version saw 1M downloads in 1 day   

• Pinterest
  - One of the top 10 largest social networks with 11M visits per week
  - 10.4M registered users

by Jeff Bullas
See full article at JeffBullas.com

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Vevo May Switch Hosting To Facebook

CNET NEWS – Jan 20 – Knowledgeable sources today told CNET that music-video service Vevo has met with Facebook at least twice about possibly moving their hosting to the social networking site and away from Google-owned YouTube. Though Vevo still has another year remaining in their contract with YouTube, at least two meetings have taken place with Facebook, most recently within the last two weeks. If Vevo makes the move, Facebook could finally provide a compelling music service to its members that would keep them on the site longer. Launched in 2009, Vevo offers music videos from three of the four major record labels: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music.

by Greg Sandoval
See full article at CNet News

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YouTube Agrees To Modify Terms Of Service

GOVT TECH – Jan 17 – After nearly 18 months of discussion with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO), YouTube has agreed to modify its terms of service to help state government agencies with faster adoption and safer usage on the site. NASCIO has had recent success with getting Facebook to update its terms of service last year, and hopes to develop similar agreements with other social media sites, including Twitter. Under the new agreement, state agencies may skip over YouTube’s standard “click through” agreement and instead have the option to adopt the newly developed content license agreement. Under this new agreement, state agencies would not be responsible for paying legal fees in the event that YouTube gets sued.

by Sarah Rich
See full article at Govt Tech

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