TOGETHER WITH

It’s Monday and MrBeast’s latest collaboration is…a book? The YouTube icon has reportedly joined forces with author James Patterson to co-write a Squid Game-style thriller.

Today’s News

OFF THE HOOK

The SEC says Haliey Welch (aka the “Hawk Tuah” girl) is free to go

The crypto controversy: You probably know Haliey Welch as the “Hawk Tuah” girl who skyrocketed to fame on TikTok last year after dropping her NSFW slogan during a street interview. What you might not know is that Welch parlayed that viral buzz into a merch line, a podcast, and finally a cryptocurrency.

That last part is where things took a turn. When $HAWK launched on December 4th, its market cap surged to $490 million—but it collapsed minutes later, losing 93% of its value and leaving almost all profits in the hands of the coin’s originators and early investors. As CCN writes, 97% of $HAWK’s total coin supply was controlled by just 10 wallets, and 53% of the coin’s early investors sold all or part of their token shares immediately after $HAWK’s debut.

Not long after that fiasco, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission got involved and Welch went radio silent. (Although she later said she’d been misled about what $HAWK would be and had intended for 50% of the generated funds to go to charity.)

The verdict: Now, after months of investigation, the SEC has reportedly closed the $HAWK case without finding Welch at fault. The influencer’s attorney, James Sallah, told TMZ that the commission “closed the investigation without making any findings against, or seeking any monetary sanctions from, Haliey.” He added that because the SEC didn’t bring any action against her, “there are no restrictions on what she can do in regards to crypto or securities in the future.”

That outcome leaves Welch free to move onto her next venture: a documentary called DocTuah, which will tell the story of her unexpected fame. (Here’s a spoiler: despite online rumors, Welch’s latest video suggests that she probably didn’t spend her months-long hiatus pregnant or in prison.)

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With all those resources and experts in one place, what more could you need?

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• According to owner Elon Musk, xAI has acquired X in “an all-stock transaction” that “values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion.” (Elon Musk via X)
  
  

• Google has agreed to pay $100 million in order to settle a class action lawsuit that accused it of charging advertisers for clicks from users outside specified geographic limits. (The Verge) 
  
  

• Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a recent interview that he arranged for his employees to see The Social Network—a movie based on his life and the founding of Facebook—when it was released in 2010. (TechCrunch)
  
  

• YouTube has reportedly demonetized two channels known for making AI-fueled “concept” film trailers—KH Studio (680K subscribers) and Screen Culture (1.8M subscribers)—following a report from Deadline. (Deadline)

PREMIUM PERKS

YouTube Premium is letting some viewers delete ads for their friends

The campaign: It’s been nearly two years since YouTube began pushing YouTube Premium as an alternative to ad-blockers. The platform rightfully assumes that people who use ad blockers don’t want to see ads—and it seems to figure that charging $13.99/month for an ad-free Premium experience is a fair compromise.

Viewers aren’t so sure. YouTube’s user base has been resistant to paying for Premium, leading the platform to launch a lower-cost tier—aka “Premium Lite”—that removes ads from most videos for a halved price of $7.99 per month.

The experiment: Now, just a few weeks later, YouTube is experimenting with another incentive. As Digital Trends spotted, the platform has debuted a test feature that lets Premium subscribers in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Turkey, and the U.K. share up to 10 ad-free videos with non-subscribers each month. Essentially, Premium subscribers can generate special ad-free links to 10 videos, and each of those links can be watched up to 10 times within a 30-day period (meaning either 10 people can watch a video once or one person can watch a video 10 times). The catch: Not every video can be turned into an ad-free version. Shorts, YouTube Originals, YouTube Music content, livestreams, and movies and shows are all exempt.

That may seem like a lot of exceptions, but it’s still a smart move on YouTube’s part. The test gives subscribers a way to reduce ad irritation for friends while also allowing the link-ees to experience a taste of Premium (something that might encourage them to subscribe themselves). For now, however, it is just a test: YouTube warns that ad-free videos are “an optional benefit and subject to be withdrawn at any time.”

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

“What is a View, Really?”: After 17 years, Tubefilter CEO Drew Baldwin has at last made his Creator Upload debut. The CEO linked up with his partner-in-crime—aka Tubefilter COO and Creator Upload host Joshua Cohen—for an in-depth look at YouTube’s latest moves (including its decision to change up the definition of what a view is).

Also on the discussion board: Good Good Golf gets great money, a TikToker is running for office, and Satatoga Water stands out in the most outrageous sigma grindset video we've ever seen.

Tune into the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.