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It’s Thursday and TikTok’s staunchest new defender is…Donald Trump. Users touched by that conveniently-timed support can head over to TikTok Shop, where assassination attempt-themed merch is selling like hotcakes.

Today’s News

GOOD NIGHT, BALTIMORE

VidCon Baltimore has been canceled. Here’s what (probably) went down:

The announcement: VidCon Baltimore 2024 is no more. Despite being well into ticket sales, the convention has canceled its East Coast edition just two months before it was set to take place.

• According to VidCon, that “difficult decision” will allow the company “to dedicate its full efforts and resources to VidCon’s flagship event in Anaheim, scheduled for Summer 2025.” Attendees can also look forward to VidCon Mexico, which is still set to take place in Mexico City from August 9-11.
  
  

• Buyers who already secured passes to VidCon Baltimore’s September 26-29 event won’t be left high and dry. All ticket-holders will receive full refunds by 11:59 p.m. EST July 19.

The big question: Why cancel VidCon Baltimore so late in the game? Last year’s East Coast event certainly didn’t muster up the same attendance numbers as its California counterpart (a total of 85,000 people attended VidCon, VidCon Baltimore, and VidCon São Paulo in 2023, with 55,000 going to Anaheim). But given the last-minute timing of VidCon’s announcement, the cancellation likely isn’t tied entirely to 2023’s attendance numbers.

• Our theory: VidCon owner Paramount Global seems to be tightening its belt as it prepares to merge with Skydance. The media company has been struggling since Viacom and CBS united to create it in 2019.
  

• According to Adweek, Paramount Global has hired the bank Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips to look into selling VidCon to a strategic buyer. With that prospect on the horizon and resources being shifted to properties like Paramount+, executing a relatively new, non-flagship event like VidCon Baltimore is likely no longer a priority.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• MrBeast’s Feastables has terminated its partnership with the Charlotte Hornets after just one NBA season. Is the team’s lackluster performance on the court to blame? (Tubefilter)
  

• Elon Musk has announced plans to move X’s HQ to Texas following the passage of a California law designed to protect LGBTQ+-affirming teachers from retaliation.(Ars Technica)
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• Meta is teaming up with the Center for Open Scienceto produce independent studies related to the impact of social media usage on teens’ mental health. (Engadget)
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• Disney+ reportedly hopes that adopting “a more Netflix-like” approach to content curation and recommendations will stop subscribers from jumping ship to rival streamers. (TechRadar)

DATA • U.S. TOP 50 📈

U.S. Top 50: Kidfluencers are taking over YouTube Shorts

The category: With channels like Toys and Colors and J House Jr. dominating the U.S. charts, it’s easy to see why 9 out of 10 American kiddos tune into YouTube.

Family-friendly Shorts hubs have perfected a formula made up of bright colors, repetitive tunes, and simplistic narratives—and unlike Netflix or The Wiggles Live, YouTube Kids is 100% free.

• The result: in the last week alone, the top 3 U.S.-based kids’ channels brought in more than 1.2 billion views.

The channel: Jason Vlogs is well on its way to becoming one of those chart-toppers. The kidfluencer-focused channel has amassed an audience of more than 20 million subscribers since its 2015 debut, and has a lifetime view count of 11.7 billion to show for it.

• A huge chunk of those views flooded in as a result of Jason Vlogs’ pivot to Shorts, which arrived just one year after the channel signed a deal with media giant pocket.watch. While Jason Vlogs still regularly produces long-form content, nearly all of its recent hits are under 60 seconds long.

The stats: That mixed-format approach brought the kid-friendly hub to new heights in the second week of July.

• Over the course of our last seven-day count, Jason Vlogs collected 110.1 million weekly views.
  
  

• That 15% week-over-week bump was enough to propel the nine-year-old channel into the U.S. Top 50 for the first time in its history.

BEWARE THE PILE

Companies like Apple are training AI models with YouTube content. Can creators escape “the Pile”?

The context: According to a new report, tech giants like Apple, Nvidia, and Anthropic have trained AI models on a data set containing subtitles from 173,536 YouTube videos—and creators aren’t happy about it.

• That data set (dubbed “the Pile”) was originally created by nonprofit EleutherAI to provide smaller AI operations with low-cost training material. The problem: underdogs aren’t the only companies tapping into the Pile—and creators like MrBeast, Marques Brownlee, and Jacksepticeye never approved the use of their content.
  
  

• Nebula CEO Dave Wiskus described the practices of Pile users as “theft,” while Julia Walsh (aka the CEO of Vlogbrothers-affiliated media company Complexly) said their team “was frustrated to learn that our…content has been used in this way without our consent.”

The response: Reactions from tech companies have been less cut-and-dry. In response to YouTube’s warnings that non-consensual AI training violates its terms of service, Anthropic told WIRED that YouTube’s terms only “cover direct use of its platform, which is distinct from use of The Pile dataset.”

• Other AI companies have extended at least a nominal olive branch to creators concerned about unauthorized training. Microsoft-backed firm OpenAI, for instance, is building tools that give content owners more power over the ways their IP is used.

The path forward: Companies like OpenAI may offer creators some level of autonomy, but Anthropic’s response reveals the need for more intervention. If policies from social media platforms aren’t enough to guard against unauthorized AI training, regulations will need to come from higher up.

• A law was already passed in the the E.U. that lays out specific regulations for datasets that are fed to AIs. As far as Tubefilteris concerned, it’s time for the U.S. to do the same.

WATCH THIS 📺

Mark Rober and MrBeast’s #TeamSeas has removed 34 million pounds of ocean trash

The movement: In just three years, MrBeast and Mark Rober‘s ocean conservation project has raised $33 million from people in over 200 countries and inspired creators to upload videos netting 1.3 billion views across 20,000+ social channels.

• The result: Rober and MrBeast’s #TeamSeas has now officially removed 34 million pounds of trash from rivers, seas, and beaches.
  
  

• The creator duo delivered that “massive announcement” in a video posted to the #TeamSeas YouTube channel. Check out the full clip here.

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