It’s Monday and the plot of an upcoming Lord of the Rings film has viewers wondering: did Warner Bros turn to a 15-year-old YouTube fan film for inspiration? 🧙

UNCUFFING SEASON

TikTok just lost one of its biggest allies in the fight against a U.S. ban

The news: NetChoice has removed TikTok from its member rolls—and governmental pressure is likely to blame.

• Two sources familiar with the situation told Politico that the advocacy group rejected TikTok at the urging of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), while another noted that NetChoice pivoted after learning that the House Select Committee on China plans to investigate firms with ties to TikTok.
  
  

• TikTok’s response was swift and scathing. A spokesperson for the app criticized Congress’ “brazen efforts” to “intimidate private organizations for associating with a company with 170 million users,” while characterizing Scalise’s tactics as “a clear abuse of power that smacks of McCarthyism.”

The context: NetChoice’s decision to jilt TikTok is a major departure from its previous support of the Bytedance-owned platform. The advocacy group notably published a defense of TikTok when it challenged a ban in Montana, and later allied with the app to dispute a Utah law that would impose age limits on social media platforms. Now NetChoice is turning its back on TikTok just as the platform prepares to challenge the U.S.’s new “divest-or-ban” law.

Why it matters: As an association that “works to make the internet safe for free enterprise,” NetChoice often provides key legal support to tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon—especially when issues like censorship arise.

• The loss of that expertise could be a deadly blow for TikTok, which hopes to invalidate the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversaries Act as an unconstitutional violation of free expression.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• A lawsuit is seeking $5 million for plaintiffs who believe KSI and Logan Paul’s Prime Hydration misled buyers about the presence of PFAs (or “forever chemicals”) in its packaging. (Tubefilter)
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• Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has encouraged his followers to trust X—which he recently described as “freedom technology”—in the wake of his resignation from Bluesky’s board. (Tubefilter)
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• Data from Nielsen shows that Fallout scored 2.9 billion minutes of viewing time during its first 5 days on Amazon Prime Video, making it the streamer’s #1 U.S. debut of all time. (Gizmodo)
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• Is OpenAI developing a Google competitor? CEO Sam Altman denied rumors of a new search engine on Friday—but he did confirm that something big is coming today at 10 AM PT. (The Verge)

COLUMNS • MILLIONAIRES 📈

This TikTok creator inspires viewers to be their most authentic selves

How it started: Rachel Chaleff had already grown accustomed to isolation by the time COVID-19 hit. The creator had been diagnosed with Tourettes as a teenager, which made homeschooling the most practical option for both middle and high school. By the time the pandemic rolled around, being cut off from her peers was a familiar feeling.

• Then TikTok came around. For fun, Chaleff began posting videos of her outfits and hair—including a clip in which she ticced while speaking.
  
  

• It wasn’t long before a flood of questions came pouring in. The creator realized she “had the opportunity to educate,” so she began addressing as many comments as she could. Within a day, her account had grown from 50 followers to 10,000.
  
  

• Chaleff’s social media career “took off from there.” After garnering millions of views on TikTok, she began posting on Instagram, too. It wasn’t long before a monetization/membership platform called Fanfix reached out.

How it’s going: Nowadays, Chaleff’s fanbase has grown to include 2.8 million TikTok followers and 330K Instagram followers. Sharing exclusive content on Fanfix has given her a crucial degree of financial freedom, and she’s also begun experimenting with affiliate marketing through TikTok Shop.

• Chaleff is expanding into new content genres, too. While she remains committed to educating viewers about Tourettes, the creator is excited to expand “in terms of things more related to commerce and beauty, makeup.”

What’s next: If fans are lucky, streaming might be part of that expansion. Chaleff says she would love to try creating content on both Twitch and YouTube—but her overarching goal is to “inspire others to be their most authentic self” and be “proud of who they are no matter what society wants to push on them.”

STREAMING BIG

Will Critical Role be able to convert fans to its new streaming service?

The announcement: Beacon has arrived. Critical Role announced the launch of its new streaming service on Thursday, when it dropped a reveal video designed to both excite and reassure long-time fans.

• So far, that approach seems to be working out a whole lot better than Watcher’s recent subscription service fiasco. Whereas the studio founded by former Buzzfeed-ers Ryan Bergara, Steven Lim, and Shane Madej infuriated fans with the (now-reversed) decision to cease YouTube uploads in favor of paywalled content, CritRole CEO Travis Willingham made it clear that Twitch and YouTube subscribers “will still be able to watch and listen freely, with the same release schedule.”

The perks: So, how will Beacon alter the CritRole ecosystem? As Willingham explained, the service will act as “the most direct way” for fans to support the RPG sensation while giving its creators “flexibility to create fun additional perks” and “offer a more unfiltered experience.”

• Subscribers willing to pay $5.99/month will gain early access to event tickets, as well as the ability to tune into new series like Critical Role Fireside Chat (a monthly live video AMA) and Re-Slayer’s Take (CritRole’s first all-ages audio show).

The motivation: Critical Role has sidestepped much of the criticism directed at Watcher by quickly and succinctly summarizing the motivations behind Beacon’s release. In the team’s announcement video, creative director/cast member Marisha Ray explained that “it has become a huge priority for us to bring more and more of our business in-house,” in part because “it’s not uncommon for our content to get demonetized because we all have the vocabulary of teenage sailors, or…have ads run in front of our content that don’t really vibe with our beliefs.”

WATCH THIS 📺

This week on the podcast…

TikTok vs. the USA: It’s official: TikTok is suing the United States over its controversial “divest-or-ban” law. The latest installment of Creator Upload digs into the potential consequences of that suit, as well as the implications of the UK’s efforts to squelch “toxic algorithms.”

• Check out the full episode on Spotify to discover what those government crackdowns mean for creators. (Or head over to Apple Podcasts—it’s totally up to you.)

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.