Creator Weekly: YouTube Image Posts, Search Preferred Sources, TikTok Community Guidelines

Hello creators! I hope you are enjoying the waning days of summer.
This week there are updates for web publishers, YouTubers, TikTok, Edits, Facebook, Bluesky and more.

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🗓 Ten Years Ago This Week: G is for Google

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing highlights from 2015.

In 2015 Google underwent a reorganization, with a new parent company, Alphabet. Google became a sister company to Waymo, Calico and other formerly-Google ventures. Google still included search, ads, photos, maps, YouTube, Google Apps (now Workspace), Cloud and more.

2015 was a fresh start for Google. The question now is does it need another fresh start to keep up in the new AI world? Get all the details

🔴 Creator Weekly Live

Join Creator Weekly Live on Sunday, 10:30AM Pacific time (6:30PM UTC). Join me live or watch the recording.

✨ OnEBoard Chat: YouTube’s AI Tools

Have you tried YouTube's AI-powered tools for creators?

Join OnEBoard Chat Sunday (August 17, immediately after Creator Weekly Live)to learn about (and discuss) YouTube's AI tools for creating Shorts, brainstorming new video ideas and auto-dubbing into multiple languages.

✅ Take this week’s quiz

What do you know about age verification on YouTube? Take this week’s quiz.

Google Age Verification Could Affect AdSense Publishers

This week Google started using AI to estimate whether a user is at least 18 (in the US). YouTubers on Reddit have been freaking out a bit about the change (of course there is a petition).

But this change doesn’t only affect YouTube - it could affect AdSense, AdMob and Ad Manager Publishers as well. If Google decides an account is under 18, that person won't see personalized ads or ads from certain sensitive categories (dating, shocking content, body modification, etc) when they visit your website, blog, or forum. And that could mean lower revenue.

It's going to hit some types of content more than others. This likely will only cause a significant change in revenue for AdSense publishers if their usual audience includes a lot of teens who falsely indicated they were over 18 (and Google determines they are under 18)

Google Uses AI To Reduce Invalid Ad Activity

If you are monetizing your website with AdSense, you are likely familiar with the bane of “invalid traffic”, which can cut your revenue or even get your account terminated.

How is invalid traffic determined? Google doesn’t share details, but this week they did announce that their Ad Traffic Quality team worked with Google Research and DeepMind for new improved LLM-powered detection of ad placements that generate invalid activity.

Google says this led to “a 40% reduction in IVT stemming from deceptive or disruptive ad serving practices”.

(AdSense Publishers should review the Ad Placement Policies for compliance).

Ask Readers to Make Your Site a Preferred Source

If you read news in the Google Search Top Stories section, you probably notice that not all sources are equally reliable and you may prefer a particular source’s point of view.

You can now select your Preferred Sources (available in the US and India). For example, I have added local news media, because their reporting is more relevant to me.

Publishers can promote their content by adding a “Add as a preferred source on Google” to their website or using a specially formatted deep link (https://google.com/preferences/source?q=<your website URL>).

The Imminent Demise of goo.gl Shortlinks Will Affect Academic Papers

Google will turn off its goo.gl link shortener on August 25. "Active" short links have gotten a reprieve, but Michael L Nelson (Old Dominion University) notes that there are technical papers that use them to reference data sets and that information may be lost.

Even if the short links lead to web pages that are no longer available, the full URL gives clues that allow the original source material to be found.

The Internet Archive has archived millions of the goo.gl short links, which is good, but only a fraction of the total.

Nelson argues that this would be a very minimal cost-saving measure for Google, and it's more likely being shut down because no engineers want to maintain the old infrastructure.

The lesson is not to use link shorteners for any links you want to be available in the long term.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

YouTube is increasing the number of images you can add to a Post from 5 images to 10 images. This will be available on phones, tablets and desktop. More information from Creator Insider.

If you have automatic dubbing on your YouTube videos, you will soon be able to edit them with the editor in YouTube Studio. After editing the auto dubs will be regenerated. Editing videos with manually added multi-language audio is not yet available. More information from Creator Insider.

If you are using YouTube Promote ad campaigns to drive visits to a website there are now more options for your call to action, including Visit Site, Book Now, Contact Us, Get Quote, Download and Shop Now. YouTube Promote lets you set up (and pay for) ads without having to go through your Google Ads account. More information from Creator Insider.

TikTok is updating their Community Guidelines. The Guidelines are more clearly written and organized, with examples. Notably, in the Integrity and Authenticity section, they now not only require realistic AI-generated or "significantly altered” content to be labeled, but also state, “Even with labels, some edited or AI-generated content can still be harmful. We don’t allow content that’s misleading about matters of public importance or harmful to individuals.” The changes go into effect September 13. Social Media Today has more coverage of the changes.

TikTok is updating its Scaled LIVE rewards, which “enables select creators to collect up to 53%* of LIVE rewards — 40% from Per-LIVE Missions and 13% from Weekly Missions”, with a cap of $1000 per week. Rewards are based on popularity (collecting Diamonds), and missions include things like new followers, LIVE days, and engagement.

TikTok Go is a new invite-only monetization program that lets creators earn commissions promoting hotels, restaurants, local experiences and other services.

Twitch is starting to test Dual Format (Vertical + Landscape) live streaming.

Instagram’s Edits video editing app has new features: It shows “safe zones” for adding text, Snap to Edge helps you align your content, create smooth animations with Keyframe Curves (iOS), and get detailed export status. If you are using it to upload Instagram Reels, you can now easily swipe between reels to see the Insights.

Edits also added new features a couple weeks ago, with the ability to boost volume to 150%, transfer sticky notes to the teleprompter, and share drafts via Instagram DM for collaboration.

LinkedIn shared tips for telling a compelling story in a 60 second video.

StreamYard has improved in-studio notifications. Now there is a Guest Entry notification with action links when a guest enters your greenroom and a clearer “mic muted” alert. And yes, you can turn them off.

Web Publishers and Search

Before you add a llms.txt file to your website, supposedly to better direct AI crawlers to your website’s content, read this report from Adobe SEO Strategist Flavio Longato: LLMs.txt - Why Almost Every AI Crawler Ignores it as of August 2025

If you have a Personal or Premium WordPress.com account (this is Matt Mullenweg’s company, not to be confused with the free WordPress software on WordPress.org), you can try out plugins for the next week or so. Usually plugins are only available on the Business and Commerce plans. If you try this the question to ask yourself is if the plugin is worth paying $25+ per week.

Earlier this year, Beehiiv launched the Beehiiv Media Collective. This supports a small group of independent journalists with health insurance, legal assistance and Getty images. This week they report on how that first cohort is doing on the platform. Yes, they are successes of varying degrees.

Social Media

You can now “like” comments on Tumblr posts.

Bluesky is updating its Community Guidelines, and wants user input. The proposed update organizes the policy around Bluesky’s principals: Safety First, Be Authentic, Respect Others, Follow the Rules, and has more specific examples. It also explains how the policy will be enforced and how users can appeal. You can submit comments until August 28, and the new policy goes into effect on October 15.

Bluesky has also updated its Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Copyright Policy. These changes go into effect September 15. Most of the changes are about complying with various international laws about age requirements, enforcement and appeals, and managing copyright complaints.

On X, Grok AI will now auto-translate posts into English for US users. Grok replaces Google Translate, and was noticeably worse at translating when it was introduced back in June. That may be improved now.

Also on X, Grok 4 is available for free(ish) to all users worldwide. You can use a “small number of queries per day” for free, but beyond that you need X Premium or a Grok subscription.

Reddit now prevents the Internet Archive from archiving its pages in the Wayback Machine. Why? Because AI companies scrape the data from there, something Reddit blocks on its own platform (at least beyond the deals it has made with Google and OpenAI). Redditors aren’t happy about it, mostly because it's used to look up deleted posts. The Internet Archive says it’s part of “the quiet threat to the internet’s memory.”

Facebook updated its Professional Dashboard on the web, with an updated homescreen with key insights, simplified navigation, and consistency with the mobile experience. They also added new insights, including an overview of content popular with your followers, and new metrics including views over time, the view rate (% people who stop their scroll to watch a Reel), and viewer retention for Reels.

If you use Fedica to manage posting to multiple social platforms, there is a nice update for Threads. Now you can add a Threads topic, rather than adding hashtags. This is what Threads prefers you do, so it might boost some reach.

Communication and Collaboration

Tip from Wired: What Happens to Your Data If You Stop Paying for Cloud Storage? (Apple iCloud, Google One, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox)

Google Slides and Google Vids can now use AI to replace and expand image backgrounds. Previously only background removal was available. Google suggests using it to create product backgrounds, visually similar employee headshots, or “visually engaging” training materials. (Requires a Google Workspace Business or Education account, or Google AI subscription)

Google Keep on Android now lets you sort your notes by either date created or date modified. (This is really useful!) It does not appear to be available on computer or iOS devices yet.

You can now use Gemini in the Android Google Docs app to generate images for your documents. (Requires a Google Workspace Business or Education account, or Google AI subscription)

Add an event to your Google Calendar from a Gmail email with Gemini on your mobile device (iOS or Android). If multiple events are detected, Gemini will offer to add all of them. This feature was already available on the web. (Requires a Google Workspace Business or Education account, or Google AI subscription)

Google Meet now lets you enlarge a presentation you are viewing on the web in “full screen” mode. (The enlarged view is the view you see when Meet is now showing dynamic tiles, so this just toggles to that view. It’s not really full screen) This is available on desktop.

Developers can now create “unified” apps that engage with all Google Workspace apps (Gmail, Chat, Drive, Calendar, Docs, Sheets). There are also a bunch of new 3rd party apps especially for Google Chat: ServiceNow Virtual Agent, LucidChart, LucidSpark, LucidScale, Jira, Comeen Workplace Agent, and GitHub.

More AI Updates

Google’s Imagen 4 text-to-image model is now available in Google AI Studio.

Google Gemini can now “reference your past chats to learn your preferences.” It is turned on by default, but you can turn it off in the Settings Personal Context section.

Google Gemini also has a new Temporary Chat feature. These Chats won’t appear in your recent chats or Gemini activity. Google says they also “won’t be used to personalize your Gemini experience or train Google’s AI models”. You can also turn off the “Keep Activity” option to prevent your data from being used to “help improve Google services for everyone” (this also deletes chats after 72 hours).

Gary Marcus: GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that’s not the worst of it.

Microsoft Copilot now includes GPT-5.

The Register: Suetopia: Generative AI is a lawsuit waiting to happen to your business

Peggy K's Creator News

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