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Instagram Adds New Features to its ‘Edits’ Video Editing App

It’s only been out for a week, and Instagram has already launched its first round of updates for its Edits video editing app, with more fonts, more voice effects, simplified editing, and more now available in the app. Meta’s also added a new “Apply all” option within its editing suite, making it easier to apply filters, effects, transitions and adjustments to all of your clips at once “to help expedite your creative process.” All of these tools are available for free, at least for now, with Instagram seeking to make these new tools available to the widest possible audience. But it has also suggested that it may need to charge for future additions, especially advanced AI-based options that require significant compute.

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LinkedIn Takes First Steps Toward Creator Monetization With ‘BrandLink’

With video consumption rising on LinkedIn, the professional social network is adding new ways for marketers to tap into popular video content, with an expansion of its Wire program, which it’s now renaming as “BrandLink”. As with its Wire offering, BrandLink enables brands to place their video ads alongside “premium publisher content” in the app. But now, LinkedIn’s expanding those placements to influencer content as well, as a first step towards facilitating creator monetization in the app.

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TikTok Shares Data on IP Detection and Shopping Safety

As it continues to expand its in-stream shopping push, TikTok is also looking to provide more assurance for brands that their IP is being protected in the app, while it’s also looking to implement responsible approaches to product listings, relevant to local laws in each region. In line with this, TikTok has released its latest TikTok Shop Safety and Intellectual Property reports, which highlight its ongoing investment into measures to protect both consumers and sellers in the app. Indeed, TikTok says that it’s spent nearly $1 billion on tools, people, and technology to solidify its in-app sales systems.

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X Looks Set to Partner With Persona on ID Confirmation for Payments

So it seems that X’s current “verification” system won’t be good enough for its upcoming payments offering, with new code snippets suggesting that it’ll be partnering with ID provider Persona to confirm people’s real identity. X is seemingly set to incorporate Persona’s confirmation processes for “safety and security, fraud prevention and payments purposes.” Persona already partners with a range of online platforms for user ID confirmation, including LinkedIn and YouTube, with Persona’s process using government-issued ID and facial scanning to confirm that you are, indeed, who you claim to be.

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Pinterest Rolls Out Enhanced Visual Search Features

Pinterest is looking to enhance discovery in the app, by adding more options for visual search, which will make it easier for users to segment different elements of each Pin image to find related, or more personally relevant products. Pinterest is also looking to make it easier to access its visual search elements, by enabling users to long-press on any Pin to switch to the visual discovery process.

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WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion users a month

WhatsApp now has more than 3 billion people using it every month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted during the company’s Q1 results conference call on Wednesday. Founded in 2009 and acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014, WhatsApp remains free to use and doesn’t serve any ads. The app reached the 2 billion monthly active user mark back in 2020, but with the latest milestone, it’s now one of the few apps to cross the 3 billion user mark, besides Facebook. That humongous user base makes WhatsApp a key business for Meta, especially now as the company has bet the farm on its AI strategy. The company has previously said that the app is one of its biggest distribution platforms for AI services.

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TikTok fined $600 million for sending user data to China

TikTok has been ordered to pay €530 million (around $600 million) for sending European users’ data to servers in China, a breach of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). TikTok has six months to bring its data processing into compliance, pending any possible appeal. The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) found that TikTok violated GDPR laws because it couldn’t guarantee that data transferred to China would be protected to a standard equivalent to the EU’s. The court singled out China’s anti-terrorism and counterespionage laws as potential risks that Chinese authorities could access European users’ data.

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Trump promises protection for TikTok, for which he has a ‘warm spot in my heart’

US President Donald Trump has said TikTok will be “very strongly protected” as the made-in-China social network has “a warm spot in my heart”. US President Donald Trump has said TikTok will be “very strongly protected” as the made-in-China social network has “a warm spot in my heart”. Speaking on NBC’s flagship political program Meet The Press, Trump was asked if he would extend the deadline for TikTok’s developer, ByteDance, to divest the app’s US operations to a local owner, as required under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that passed last year with support from Republican lawmakers who agreed with its thrust that TikTok endangers US citizens as their data can be accessed in China.

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