TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and a nihilist penguin has gone viral nearly 20 years after he first waddled away from his colony in a 2007 nature documentary.

TIKTOK TALK

The stumbling blocks: If you thought all the U.S. TikTok drama would subside once a deal was sealed…well, we’re sorry to disappoint. It’s been less than a week since the U.S. and China locked in a divestiture, but some TikTok users are already claiming that posts touching on hot-button issues have been silenced.

In the wake of the shooting of Alex Pretti, many users attempted to post videos commenting on Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minneapolis—but some found that they were unable to do so. Comedian Meg Stalter, for example, claimed that an anti-ICE video reposted from Instagram failed to upload on TikTok. Others reported similar stories. 

The entity in charge of the new U.S. app, TikTok USDS Joint Venture, blamed those glitches on technical issues at a data center—but Trump’s opponents have questioned that excuse given the history of TikTok’s divestiture.

One of the architects of the bill that led to the original TikTok ban, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), admitted that the legislation was a nonstarter until TikTok became a hotbed for anti-Israel sentiments. The U.S. version of TikTok has always been seen as a check on youth discourse, and control over the platform’s content recommendation algorithm was a key asset handed over to the U.S. in the $14 billion deal.

The response: In a recent statement, California Governor Gavin Newsom noted that his office had “received reports—and independently confirmed instances—of suppressed content critical of President Trump” and pledged to investigate the technical issues affecting U.S. TikTok.

Some TikTok users aren’t waiting around to find out more. Uninstallations of the app have spiked since the debut of TikTok USDS Joint Venture, and alternatives are seeing sudden reversals of fortune. UpScrolled became one of the ten most-downloaded apps in the U.S., and TikTok lookalike Skylight now counts over 380,000 users.

Burnout doesn’t happen because creators lack talent or ambition. It happens because they don’t have the right infrastructure backing them up. 

OpusSearch makes short-form growth sustainable—so you can stay in control without doing everything yourself.

By centralizing real-time trend analysis, content optimization, and video editing, OpusSearch’s cutting-edge AI clipping technology finds, clips, and polishes the best moments from your entire content catalogue in moments. 

That comprehensive infrastructure means creators and brands can repurpose long-form content into viral short videos without taking on more work themselves or spending thousands on clipping agencies. 

The result: creators no longer have to burn themselves out (or burn cash on multiple editing platforms and clipping agencies) to keep up with the short-form wave. 

Top creators and brands are already benefiting from that efficiency.

By switching from clipping agencies to OpusClip, YouTube star Zach Justice scored 10M+ views and reached 67% more viewers in just 30 days, while brands like Nvidia and Univision dominated 2025 by producing up to 7x more content with OpusSearch. 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

INDUSTRY BUZZ

The company: Five months after stepping down as Co-CEO of Paramount, Brian Robbins is getting back into the YouTube world.

The former Nickelodeon President and Awesomeness TV co-founder is behind a new entertainment company called Big Shot Pictures, which will look to incubate kid-friendly animated IP by leveraging YouTube and its massive potential as a multiplatform brand builder.

Big Shot has already signed a first-look deal with another company that’s eager to get involved with YouTube creators: Sony Pictures Entertainment. The two partners will look to build animated franchises across “film, television, streaming, consumer products, experiences, and emerging digital media formats.” Sony is also backing Big Shot financially, as are Greycroft, MarcyPen Capital Partners, ValueAct Capital, and CAA.

Creator partnerships, acquisitions, and original IP are all on the table as Big Shot looks to build its digital-native hits. To start, Robbins’ new company has acquired the rights to Eloise at the Plaza, a children’s book series from author Kay Thompson and illustrator Hilary Knight.

The context: Robbins has long understood YouTube’s status as the cutting edge of children’s entertainment. Through Awesomeness TV, the exec helmed projects that brought social media creators to TV screens and movie theaters (although the multi-channel network’s ambitious plans never quite lived up to the hype, and its namesake streaming service closed its doors in 2017).

Now, Robbins is diving back into the digital content waters—and pledging to use YouTube to its full potential:

AI BUBBLE

The AI sources: Last year, Reddit established itself as the most common host for sources cited by chatbots like ChatGPT. All of a sudden, the forum-based hub was red hot. Its user base surged and other platforms began testing products to mimic its signature threaded comments.

But now according to Adweek, the landscape is shifting. A new report claims that AI chatbots are now more likely to cite YouTube videos than Reddit content.

The shift makes sense. Large language models (LLMs) are becoming more adept at parsing videos, and YouTube has the biggest library of comprehensive long-form explainer content the world as ever seen. As a result, data from AI marketing platform Bluefish shows that 16% of LLM answers over the past six months contained information from YouTube, compared to just 10% for Reddit.

The pivot: So, what’s next? Will the platforms that copied Reddit last year in pursuit of more chatbot traffic now take a page out of YouTube’s book?

One could argue that a pivot to video has already begun. Apps known for short-form video—such as TikTok and Instagram—are now encouraging creators to go long as well. Longer runtimes lead to more opportunities for AI citations, especially as more advanced LLMs increasingly refer to videos.

The behavior: Users’ actual interest in those citations is less clear. Some studies have found that chatbot referrals can be quite powerful for ecommerce hubs. A September 2025 report from Similarweb, for example, estimated that the conversion rate for visits referred by ChatGPT is 11.4% (compared with 5.3% for organic search).

On the flipside, a working paper from researchers in Germany found that ChatGPT converts far worse than traditional channels like Google Search. And according to a July 2025 report from the Pew Research Center, consumers really don’t like receiving AI-generated results on organic search hubs.

Still, even if AI-driven traffic remains a minority channel, it’s now large enough to matter. Which means platforms won’t wait to see how users feel. They’ll continue to optimize for how AI systems ingest, interpret, and cite their content.

WATCH THIS 👀

The video: YouTube, Meta, and Reddit are at the center of a lawsuit from a woman who was caught texting with both hands while driving a Turo rental car. In a viral dash cam video of the crash (which racked up millions of views after being posted online by the vehicle’s owner), the driver appears to look down at her phone for long periods of time.

The driver (referred to as “G.P.”) claims that the video was edited to be “maximally humiliating,” and that she only made “a split-second decision to glance at her phone to send a quick message.” At that point, the car drifted off the road, smashed into a mailbox, and ended up in a ditch.

The suit: G.P.’s complaint centers on her claim that the car’s owner, Jose Hernandez Arevalo, didn’t notify her of the dash cam or get permission to record her (which is required by Turo’s TOS), and also that the footage showed her work badge and full name.

The suit asks a judge to issue a court order that will force YouTube, Meta, Reddit, and news outlets to remove video of G.P. from their websites. But from where we’re standing, that outcome seems unlikely. The three platforms are protected by Section 230 (aka the Safe Harbor law)—and even if they weren’t, filming people in public is generally legal in the U.S.

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