It's Monday and YouTube is hyping up its podcast viewership ahead of the new year. One major point of pride: the platform says viewers watched over 700 million hours of podcasts on living room devices in October 2025.

Today’s News

DONE DEAL

The U.S. TikTok deal is official(ish). Here’s what we know:

The memo: According to an internal memo sent to TikTok employees, ByteDance is about to sell the U.S. version of its video platform to a White House-approved ownership group.

In the memo, which was viewed by Axios, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told staff that TikTok U.S. will be sold for $14 billion to a consortium led by tech company Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Emirati-backed investors at MGX. The three entities will collectively own 45% of the new company, with Oracle serving as the shepherd for the U.S. user data.

If $14 billion sounds like a bit of a steal to you, you’re not alone. Critics have wondered how an app that generates billions in revenue could sell for such a lowball number. Chew’s memo offers some potential answers: for one, ByteDance will retain ownership of nearly 20% of the new business, with “affiliates of existing ByteDance investors” claiming close to one-third of the company. And second, the memo says that “TikTok Global’s U.S. entities” will continue to manage shared global systems. That includes product interoperability, e-commerce, advertising, and marketing, giving ByteDance ongoing economic exposure to TikTok’s fastest-growing revenue streams.

The context: That agreement isn’t officially set in stone until the Chinese government gives its approval, but Chew wrote that the deal is expected to close on January 22, 2026. If ByteDance and the U.S. government can shake hands by that date, they will end a year-long regulatory saga.

One of President Trump’s first actions after retaking the Oval Office was a stay on the law that would have forced TikTok to choose between a divestment and a federal ban—but negotiations with China took longer than expected, necessitating additional delays that tested the constitutional bounds of the President’s power. Now, it looks like a resolution is finally on the horizon.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Tribeca Film Festival has announced that social media creators will be formally invited to present their work in the 2026 Tribeca N.O.W. category. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Instagram is putting the kibosh on hashtag spam. According to platform chief Adam Mosseri, creators will now be limited to adding a maximum of five tags per post. (MSN)
  
  

• OpenAI has announced the rollout of an age prediction model that will allow ChatGPT to “automatically apply teen safeguards when we believe an account belongs to a minor.” (OpenAI)
  
  

• Starting next year, Peacock reportedly plans to begin showing subscribers new “Arrival Ads” that will appear as soon as they open the streaming service. (PC Mag)

INDUSTRY STANDOFF

YouTube is pulling its data from Billboard’s music charts

The context: YouTube is boycotting the Billboard charts. As a protest against recent adjustments to the music publication’s weighting formula, Google’s video hub has chosen to withdraw its data altogether—signaling the end of over a decade of involvement in the Billboard charts.

Viewership data from YouTube was first factored into the Billboard charts in 2013, and immediately warped the rankings when Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” (an EDM tune that happened to be the soundtrack for a tidal wave of memes) shot to the top of the Hot 100.

That success exposed an inherent flaw in Billboard’s formula. The company’s charts owe their high status to their ability to accurately reflect cultural tastes—but “Harlem Shake” was popular because of a viral fad, not because of any intrinsic quality. In theory, any other EDM song with a big drop could have been the soundtrack for that meme.

Billboard first attempted to solve that problem in 2018 with an update that increased the weight of listens from subscription-based streaming services (such as Apple Music or Spotify), thus limiting the importance of ad-supported streams on platforms like YouTube. Now, it’s shifting gears again: beginning in 2026, on-demand streams of both the ad-supported and subscription-based varieties will be weighted more favorably in comparison to album sales.

The protest: In theory, the update is directionally positive for YouTube, since it improves the standing of ad-supported streams. Still, Billboard’s formula continues to favor subscription listening, which is why YouTube says the changes don’t go far enough. The official stance of YouTube Head of Music Lyor Cohen is that “every play should count equally.” Since Billboard won’t commit to that equilibrium, YouTube is pulling its data from the publication and promoting its own weekly music charts.

THUMBS DOWN

YouTube hid the dislike button. Now it’s considering a name change.

The experiment: What if, instead of trying to hide the dislike button, YouTube could simply put a less pejorative spin on its thumbs-down icon? To answer that question, the platform is conducting an ongoing experiment on YouTube Shorts.

According to the YouTube Support thread, some users are seeing a new experimental layout that moves the dislike button from the Shorts sidebar to a pop-up menu, where it has been merged with the “Not Interested” option. A portion of users in that test group will see the “Dislike” title, while others will see “Not Interested.” YouTube’s goal, as stated in the Support thread, is to determine whether users use those terms “interchangeably.”

The context: That question is a pertinent one. Over the years, bad actors have weaponized the thumbs down in order to “dislike-bomb” videos. Female creators have been particularly affected by those campaigns, as their videos are more likely to be targeted than those uploaded by men.

In 2021, YouTube responded to that trend by hiding dislikes. Viewers could still give a thumbs-down to clips they didn’t care for, but dislike totals were made private and moved to creator dashboards. That shift triggered immediate backlash, with some critics raising moral questions related to the ethics of hiding dissent. 

Now, YouTube’s current experiment suggests that the platform might have found a simple solution to its dislike problem—at least, when it comes to Shorts. Rather than hiding its most negative form of public feedback, YouTube can simply rename it: the dislike button could become “Not Interested” in the near future. (Unless, of course, users are not interested in that particular adjustment.)

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

The episode: For the final episode of 2025, Creator Upload hosts Lauren Schnipper and Joshua Cohen broke down one of this year’s biggest Hollywood announcements: the Academy Awards’ upcoming shift from ABC to YouTube. Tune in for a full analysis of the big change—from why it’s happening to the history of the broadcast and predictions surrounding creators’ future on the red carpet when YouTube takes over in 2029.

Check out the full episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for all the details.

Take our survey: Creator Upload wants your opinion! Take this survey to help us understand who’s tuning in and what you want more (or less) of from the show.

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