TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and Threads is yeeting the randos from your feed—or as Instagram head Adam Mosseri puts it, “rebalancing ranking to prioritize content from people you follow.”

Today’s News

BEAST GAMES

MrBeast finally addressed all those allegations. (Oh, and the first Beast Games trailer dropped.)

The response: After months of near silence, MrBeast has at last addressed some of the allegations against his brand. The creator sat down for a nearly three-hour interview with YouTuber Oompaville earlier this week, during which he responded to a litany of accusations:

• On the alleged mistreatment of contestants on his Amazon show, Beast Games: Donaldson told Oompaville he’s currently facing a class action suit from Beast Games contestants and can’t talk about some allegations. He did, however, deny that his team refused to allow trade unions on set and described claims of contestant injuries as “disinformation.” (Donaldson’s interview with Oompavile was posted two days before the first trailer for Beast Games dropped.)
  
  

• On claims surrounding workplace harassment and overwork: Donaldson said an internal investigation found no evidence that he “knowingly” employed people with “proclivities” for “questionable legal conduct.” Investigators did, however, find “several isolated instances of workplace harassment,” which led Donaldson to fire multiple employees and search for a new CEO (per his lawyer, Alex Spiro).
  
  

• On rumors that Donaldson’s candy brand uses slave labor: The creator denied the claims outright, saying that Feastables’ beans are Fair Trade Certified and “we also pay a Living Income Reference Price.”
  
  

• On his alleged participation in crypto insider trading: Donaldson said the transactions in question “were managed by a fund,” meaning he “wasn’t the one managing the wallet.”
  
  

• On the quality of Lunchly (which has been called into question due to mold found in some meals): Donaldson insisted that the lunch kit brand he co-founded alongside KSI and Logan Paul has “the highest [quality control] standards imaginable.”

The impact: Donaldson noted that he’s “probably gonna have to” sue DogPack404, a former employee who has accused him of rigging content and mistreating staffers. Donaldson added that he’s had sponsors “pull out millions of dollars” due to the whistleblower’s videos.

It’s true that the MrBeast YouTube channel has posted fewer sponsored videos and seen a significant drop in his subscriber acquisition rate, though he’s still adding millions. In June, the hub gained 28 million new subscribers. By September, the equivalent number had dropped to 5 million. In total, the channel’s still the most-subscribed on YouTube by far at 332 million (while T-Series is now in a distant second at 279 million).

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Video helped Dropouts grow its Spotify audience by 40%. What could you do with video on Spotify?

In the past year alone, Spotify has seen an 88% surge in users consuming video podcasts—and creators like Dropouts cohosts Zach Justice and Jared Bailey are reaping the benefits.

This is their video on Spotify story:

• For nearly three years, Zach and Jared built a following on Spotify with nothing but their voices and wit.
  
  

• Then, in 2023, the duo decided to bring video content—something they were already creating on YouTube—over to Spotify in order to expand their audience base.
  
  

• The result was a snowball effect of engagement: within three months of adding video, Dropouts saw its Spotify audience grow by a whopping 40%.

Need more reasons to start adding video to Spotify? Zach loves how Spotify audiences engage with their content differently than on other platforms:

Ready to get started? Find some tips on how to use video to grow your show on Spotify.

Learn more about video on Spotify →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Family-friendly YouTubers are facing some deep-pocketed competition. Disney Jr. and Netflix Jr. both appeared in our latest U.S. Top 50 chart after scoring over 100 million weekly views each. (Tubefilter)
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• In an attempt to stop The Onion from buying Alex Jones' social media accounts, X Corp. has filed a suit claiming that it is “the sole owner of the Services being sold as part of the sale of the X Accounts.” (Gizmodo)
  
  

• According to Meta spokesperson Alec Booker, Threads totaled 35 million user sign-ups in November and is “going on three months with more than a million signups a day.” (The Verge)
  
  

• TikTok is reportedly rolling out new child safety restrictions that will prevent users under the age of 18 from applying certain beauty filters. (The Guardian)

SHOP TIL YOU DROP

Here’s how Black Friday will play out on social media’s top platforms:

The trend: Social shopping in the West hasn’t yet exploded into the multi-billion dollar industry it is in Asia—but on November 29, top platforms will do their best to nudge the process along. Here’s what social media’s biggest hubs have in store for Black Friday:

TikTok: Celebrity-hosted buyable streams have already gone live on TikTok and will continue until December 2. The Bytedance-owned platform has also coached American creators on Asian ecommerce tactics and brought brands to TikTok Shop by working with them to pass on deals to consumers.

YouTube: YouTube might not have the same live shopping infrastructure as TikTok, but the platform has nevertheless introduced several ecommerce product updates over the past year. An expanded partnership with Shopify is also growing the number of affiliate links on YouTube, while simultaneously helping creators put more products in their videos. YouTube is putting some of those creators front-and-center for Black Friday, with stars like TechWithBrett helming sponsored videos to promote on-platform shopping.

Instagram: Meta has introduced a variety of ad tools to make its holiday shopping push more streamlined for brands. As the go-to platform for influencer marketing, Instagram is likely to see companies deploy those features en masse this week.

Amazon: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are always hotly-anticipated dates for Amazon shoppers—but this year and next year, the platform will add an extra infusion of digital content to the mix. Prime Video is set to broadcast an NFL game on Friday, and Amazon plans to kick off a programming deal with the NBA on the same day in 2025.

THE FEEDBACK GAP

Want to know why YouTube hid dislikes? Ask a female creator.

The update: When YouTube decided to hide dislike counts in 2021, the resulting criticism was immediate and widespread—but then-CEO Susan Wojcicki knew the unpopular change was necessary to protect creators who didn’t have the visibility to advocate for their needs.

The stats: Now, a study conducted at the University of Zurich has added further credence to Wojcicki’s position. Lead researcher Marita Freimane and her team found that female creators who were previously victimized by “dislike attacks” are now more productive and receive more positive feedback on their video than before dislikes were hidden.

The proof is in the stats: once dislikes went private, female creators received 21% fewer thumbs down and saw their overall negative feedback decline by 57%. At the same time, the amount of content uploaded by female YouTubers went up by 8.4%, while demand for that content rose by 15.5%. According to Freimane, those upticks narrowed a “gender feedback gap” that previously saw female creators receive 43% more dislikes than their male counterparts.

The context: Dislike attacks provide the easiest explanation for the magnitude of the shift. When coordinated viewer mobs targeted female creators with scores of dislikes, psychological phenomena made it more common for other, unassociated viewers to leave negative feedback as well. On YouTube, hiding dislikes blunted the impact of those attacks—and Freimane thinks other platforms could bring about similar changes by embracing small-yet-meaningful tweaks of their own:

WATCH THIS 📺

Arcane is bringing the beat to YouTube

The show: Arcane Season 2 shattered Netflix records shortly after the release of its first three episodes. Now, all nine installments of the League of Legends prequel have dropped—and views are continuing to flood in at a rapid pace. (Although the show was admittedly knocked down the charts by Mike Tyson and Jake Paul’s live tussle.)

The music video: Arcane’s success extends beyond its home platform. Yesterday, the official music video for “The Line”—a Twenty One Pilots song featured in Arcane’s second season—hit the Trending tab on YouTube after collecting more than 2 million views in just 24 hours. Check it out here.

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