Good AI; Bad AI

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Elon Musk is hilarious sometimes. Like, not on purpose. He’s painfully unfunny when he’s trying to be (let that sink in). But his attempts to lead product development are deeply funny like Sideshow Bob coding his way through a parking lot full of rakes. This week, he really outdid himself by turning off headlines on all link preview cards. So now you just see the preview image, no text. As folks on Bluesky pointed out, this is making old tweets by online publishers look like Dadaist art projects. 

With Twitter, sorry X, being what it is, no one instantly used this update to spread misinformation. Oh wait.

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

• Some major brands are giving up on Threads as engagement craters 

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Proposes $14 per Month Charge for Ad-Free Facebook

• Meta Expands Roll Out of Generative AI Features for Ad Creation 

TikTok

• Indonesia bans e-commerce sales on social media platforms like TikTok (not just a TikTok story but TikTok feels like a central driver) 

• TikTok is reportedly testing a paid, ad-free version of its app

YouTube

• YouTube Expands Access To Monetization, Adds New AI Effect for Shorts

Apple 

• New report casts doubt on Apple’s first ‘carbon neutral’ products 

Google 

• Google Pixel 8 launch event: the 7 biggest announcements

• Google reportedly manipulates search results to hide controversial subjects and favor big business

Amazon  

• Amazon reportedly used a secret algorithm to jack up prices (sensing a theme here) 

Reddit

• Reddit Rolls Out Expanded Topic and Audience Matching Options in Ads Manager (anecdotally, I’ve noticed that Reddit ads are much more intrusive and less relevant the past few times I’ve opened the site) 

• Reddit is making it easier to search for your favorite memes (they are adding a media tab to search on their mobile apps) 

LinkedIn 

• LinkedIn Begins Testing Fully Automated Accelerate Ad Campaigns 

Twitter, Sorry X

The Product 

• X Signs Exclusive Content Deal With Paris Hilton To Build on Its Entertainment Efforts (she’s got a great track record of picking winning, not-at-all-scams tech to collaborate with) 

• X stops showing headlines because Elon Musk thinks it will make posts look better 

The Dumpster Fire

• Elon Musk sued for defamation for falsely identifying man as neo-Nazi protestor 

• ADL says it will resume advertising on X following feud with Elon Musk (there seems to me zero indication that the ADL’s initial complaints about antisemitism on the platform have been addressed so 🤷) 

• The Moral Case for No Longer Engaging With Elon Musk’s X

• Schools Report Bomb Threats Following Libs of Tiktok Anti-LGBTQ Posts (Libs of TikTok is a popular far right Twitter, sorry X, account) 

Twitter Alts 

• Amid Twitter chaos, Mastodon grew donations 488% in 2022, reached 1.8M monthly active users

• Artifact will let you generate images with AI for your posts  

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• Disney VFX Artists Unanimously Vote to Unionize

• ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ Writers Decline to Return 

Music 

• Spotify’s new artist profiles highlight music, Stories, merch and events

• Low Demand for Travis Scott Creates Liquidity Crisis in Ticket Reselling Economy 

Creator Economy 

• Patreon has a new look for its next era (my official response to the new logo is “no comment”) 

• Amazon is quietly shuttering its live audio app Amp 

• MrBeast calls out TikTok for allowing deepfake ad: “This is a serious problem” 

Scams

• Folding Ideas has a new video on the Gamestop memestock community

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial has started. Here’s what you need to know 

Good AI; Bad AI

I use Canva a lot at work. All of my team’s mock templates are in a shared folder, and it’s powerful enough that I can create a lot of stuff but not so complicated it was difficult for me to learn. That UX balancing act is Canva’s real strength. So, when they announced several new AI tools this week, I was actually curious to take a look. Could these new features actually be useful? At a quick glance, I think so.

First, the landing page explaining all of this stuff is great. Each new Magic Design feature also has a demo design where you can test out the various AI-powered tools. Being able to quickly grab, resize, and adjust objects in a photo will save me a lot of time. I instantly see a use case for Magic Expand, which extends a photo to fill in a new aspect ratio, in my routine workflows. Looking forward to playing with these tools more.

Another company surprised me with some actually useful AI stuff this week: The Browser Company. I’ve been experimenting with their new browser, Arc, for a few months now and really like it. This week, they announced Max (I know the name is also terrible here), a suite of AI tools built into the browser. My favorite one so far is called “5 Second Preview.” You just hold shift while hovering over a link, and Arc will summarize the linked page for you. I can actually see myself using this one a lot. Does the headline look like clickbait? Get the AI to give you a quick summary to find out if it’s worth your time to read it. 

These aren’t the flashy “replace your entire workforce,” “is this robot actually sentient,” hyped-up AI announcements. They are fairly modest but effective tools that I’m more likely to actually use because they’ve been thoughtfully designed to fit in with the other tools I’m already using. So good job Canva and Browser Company. 

Unfortunately, we also need to talk about Meta and Microsoft this week. 

Alongside Meta’s super cringe “celebrity” roleplay chatbots, they’ve also launched an AI tool for generating in-app stickers. And well… it’s going about as well as you might expect. 

Actually, this might be the best product feature Meta has shipped in a long time. Gotta respect Karl Marx’s big naturals. 

Microsoft also failed to properly prepare for shitposters getting access to their new image-generation tools this week. People on the internet, being more clever than AI or Microsoft employees, quickly found a way around banned terms like “9/11” and got Bing to create images like this one of Spongebob Squarepants about to commit a terrorism. 

Please, AI companies, hire a few shitposters to explain how the internet will actually use these tools when you are building the guardrails. I’d be happy to discuss my consulting fee with you even. 

Need to explain “Spongebob does a 9/11” to your less online friends? Just share Kinda Brief with them.

Recommended Reading 

This week, one of my favorite newsletters, Garbage Day, dropped a great piece digging into the decline of quality content on Facebook and the weird trends that do get engagement over there. Paired with a new report for Axios about the overall decline in traffic from Meta and X to top news sites and you start to get a fuller picture of just how much social media and digital publishing have changed in the past few years. It’s pretty bleak, ngl. It also makes me really appreciate all of you who are interested in a human curating interesting news stories for you each week.