PLANOLY Social Sphere: Week of July 27, 2020

July 31 2020 | News , Social Media

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Ready for this week’s rundown? Good, grab your coffee, and try not to spit it out as some of these updates may come as a surprise.

The Twitter and TikTok saga continues to develop in this week’s Social Sphere with updates on the U.S. TikTok ban and Twitter security breach. Youtube and Instagram create new systems to help their users fundraise and track revenue through new features and metrics. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google continue to be at the center of news stories as their CEOs appeared in court this week for antitrust allegations. And of course, black and white selfies continue to flood our feed, hoping to promote women's empowerment.

Let’s get right into it!

In the News

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Twitter Updates Users That Bitcoin Hackers Were Able to Access Several DM Inboxes

As we know, Twitter’s latest security breach led to several high-profile accounts getting hacked. In Twitter’s latest Tweet, they reveal that 36 of 130 targeted accounts were subject to hackers accessing their DM inbox. Twitter hasn’t commented further but says they have been directly contacting the users that were affected. Be sure to keep a lookout for any more developments in the latest Twitter hack.

TikTok Opens up Algorithm

TikTok opens up its algorithm to the public and urges other tech companies to do the same. This comes after the Trump Administration discussed a potential TikTok ban in the U.S. TikTok founder Zhang Yiming is working hard to stop the ban and save the value of the franchise. TikTok isn’t going to wait for regulation to come but instead be the example for other companies to follow suit. This also comes at a time when big tech CEOs will testify before Congress.

YouTube Develops a New Metric to Help Creators Track Their Revenue Better

YouTube’s new metric, Rate per mile (RPM), will help standardize creators’ revenue. RPM compares total revenue against total views and, more specifically, calculates how much a creator has earned per 1,000 views. This new update is said to be a better way for creators to monitor and find ways to improve upon each video regularly.

Instagram Adds a New Fundraising Feature to Help Small Businesses

Instagram has been rolling out several features to help support their users and creators during times of global crisis. Their latest feature is a new personal fundraising tool that will help users or small businesses fundraise for causes that are important to them. The fundraiser can last up to 30 days with the option to extend. Not all fundraisers will be approved and will be reviewed by Instagram to make sure they meet the eligibility criteria.

What's Trending

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Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google Are Going to Trial

Over the past year, the antitrust panel of the House Judiciary Committee has conducted an investigation focusing on if big tech companies have become too powerful, violating antitrust laws. The investigation acquired 1.3 million documents from companies testifying against Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. And earlier this week, their CEOs were confronted with antitrust allegations before Congress. This may set the framework for a new era of antitrust policy work for the tech industry.

Black and White Selfies Are the Latest Social Media Trend

A recent trend emerged of women posting black and white selfies with #challengeaccepted. It has left many confused about the trend’s intent but appears to be women’s empowerment focused. Khloe Kardashian and Kerry Washington are some famous names participating in the challenge. However, some women believe its execution is vague and actionless and critiquing whether or not it should just be a selfie or a list of women-owned businesses to support, etc. Reports say the rise in this trend came after Alexandria Ocasio Cortez spoke out against representative Ted Yoho’s sexist remarks against her on the floor.

Who Started the “What Are You?” Meme Account Trend on Instagram?

In recent weeks we’ve seen accounts pop up all over Instagram with the similar IG handle “what __ R U?” We haven’t seen a trend take off like this since the 2020 IG prediction filters at the beginning of the year. Some of the more popular accounts include @what_frog_you_are and @whatdogyouare. Their appeal is that they continue to post new content through DM requests and have even started collecting money to donate to foundations supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 relief funds. This is yet another smart way social media has been able to find a way to continue supporting important causes.

Twitter Shares a 2020 Trending Topics Forecast

Twitter shares an infographic detailing how trending topics have shifted from 2019 to 2020. For most years, they’ve been able to predict what the trending topics would be based on the season, but since 2020 has been so different than previous years, there is no way to predict what will be trending next. For example, Tweets about Juneteenth grew exponentially in 2020.

That’s it for this week’s social sphere. Tune back in for the latest updates on August 14th!