TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and U.S. TikTok users are sticking it to the government in an unexpected way. Will the upcoming ban make “Chinese Instagram” a hot commodity in the United States?

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

Senators who passed the TikTok ban are realizing a lot of people won’t like it

The proposal: As of now, it looks like the law forcing TikTok to either be divested from its parent company or banned in the U.S. will go into effect on January 19—and legislators are beginning to reckon with that reality.

Lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill have received widespread hate on social media, and a few have now proposed delaying the divest-or-ban law. The Extend the TikTok Deadline Act comes from the desk of Ed Markey (D-MA)—a progressive leader who has joined Republicans in decrying the incoming TikTok ban—and is co-sponsored by Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ).

The context: That Hail Mary measure might not be enough to earn back the goodwill of constituents, especially given the voting history of its supporters. The TikTok ban was passed as part of aid packages for Ukraine and Israel, which may be why Markey, Wyden, and Booker all voted in the law’s favor.

Regardless of their motivations, however, Democratic senators with active TikTok accounts—including Booker and Bob Casey (D-PA)—have been flooded with comments from aggrieved users who want to know why they’re using an app they’re so eager to ban. (GOP regulators have avoided that backlash by simply staying off TikTok. A January 2023 report from the Idaho Capital Sun found that nearly all of the 32 Congresspeople active on TikTok are Democrats.)

The takeaway: Regardless of whether the delay proposal goes through, Democratic brass can’t escape the consequences of betting that TikTok users wouldn’t see through the Biden Administration’s performative support. In the aftermath of the ban-or-divest bill’s passing, public support fell off a cliff, the Dems were routed in the November elections, and TikTok officials cozied up to Donald Trump. It won’t be long now before we see what happens if and when the ban actually goes into effect.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• During the week of January 12, a whopping 42 of the 50 most-viewed YouTube channels in the U.S. operated primarily on Shorts. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• According to a new report from Bloomberg, “people familiar with the matter” say Chinese officials are considering a potential sale of TikTok to Elon Musk in the event of a U.S. ban. (Bloomberg)
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• Meta reportedly plans to lay off roughly 5% of its employees by mid-February in an effort to "move out low performers faster.” (Ars Technica)
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• Instagram rival Pixelfed has launched iOS and Android apps after receiving “unprecedented levels of traffic” in the days following Meta’s announcement of new moderation policies. (The Verge)

FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Zuckerberg‘s infamous suck-up video has sparked a $30M movement to “save social media” from billionaires

The movement: Tech advocates and celebs are raising $30 million to build a social network beyond the control of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg. That initiative—called Free Our Feeds—has attracted the support of notable figures like actor Mark Ruffalo, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiha Syed, Mozilla Foundation President Mark Surman, New_Public Co-Director Deepti Doshi, and Future of Technology Institute Executive Director Sherif Elsayed-Ali (among many others).

The ultimate goal is to “create an entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart.” That “independently hosted [social media] infrastructure” will be based on the AT Protocol (aka the open-source technology upon which Bluesky is built).

The plan: The bones of the AT Protocol were originally developed by an independent research group within Twitter, before the platform’s co-founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey left and founded Bluesky. Now, Free Our Feeds aims to give Bluesky users, developers, and researchers access to the content and data posted on its platform “no matter what the company decides to do in the future.”

To accomplish that goal, the initiative will dedicate the $30 million it raises to three objectives:

1. Establishing a public-interest foundation to make the AT Protocol technology “independent and globally standardized.”

2. Building independent infrastructure that will interact with Bluesky, “guaranteeing Bluesky users and developers have uninterrupted access to data streams, regardless of corporate decisions.”

3. And finally, funding independent developers to create apps built on the AT Protocol, “fostering healthier and more equitable online spaces.”

THE BIZ

Advertisers can now see if their Amazon ads drive sales at Walmart, Best Buy, and Target

The partnership: As the largest e-tailer in the world, Amazon can tell marketers if the ads they run on Prime Video drive sales on its massive ecommerce platform. What it can’t do is tell them whether those ads drive sales at retail giants like Walmart and Target—because, traditionally, that info is only available to the retail giants themselves.

Until now.

According to Adweek, retail media tech companies Gigi and Stackline have signed a partnership to access those “walled gardens” of data and share the insights with advertisers. Their goal: to help marketers draw clearer lines between Prime Video ads and retail sales.

The context: Gigi aids brands in placing TV ads on Amazon-, Disney-, and NBCUniversal-owned streaming services, then provides performance data. Stackline, meanwhile, collects first-party personal data from over one million people who spend who spend about $10 billion annually and have opted in to having their shopping tracked by Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy.

Thanks to their new partnership, Gigi co-founder/CEO Adam Epstein says brands will be able to create ads that, for example, target someone who shops in-person at Walmart but watches Prime Video (i.e. by encouraging them to purchase a specific product in the store).

The takeaway: That kind of insight is a big deal, especially since analysts like eMarketer forecast that brands will spend $60 billion this year on digital ads aimed at encouraging people to buy from brick-and-mortar retailers. Stackline VP of Marketing Greg Wolny told Adweek he thinks broader data access will lead to brands fine-tuning their current Amazon marketing, and maybe buying more.

Zach Servideo, CEO at consulting firm Value Creation Labs, believes that business model could have even wider implications:

WATCH THIS 📺

Netflix just struck a deal with one of YouTube’s most beloved kid-friendly stars

The announcement: Ms. Rachel—an early childhood educator whose sing-songy videos have drawn over 13 million YouTube subscribers—is bringing her kid-friendly content to Netflix. Starting January 27, viewers will gain access to a “a curated compilation of her playful, research-backed videos for every stage of a child’s development.”

It’s no surprise that the streaming service is eager to reach Ms. Rachel’s young fanbase. YouTube viewership among two-to-11-year-olds went up 4% last year at Netflix’s expense—and Ms. Rachel was a major factor underlying that shift. Check out the announcement video for her Netflix debut here.

Creator economy marketing starts here. Get in touch to advertise with Tubefilter.

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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.