This week there are updates for YouTube Shorts and Instagram viewers, YouTube and Facebook creators, website owners and more.
Top Updates
- YouTube Shorts player redesign with 2x speed, hearts replacing likes and Clear Screen mode. The dislike button is gone.
- YouTube Studio Content tab redesign with Notices, Visibility, and Estimated Revenue.
- YouTube Studio app Account Status page gives an overview of any critical channel issues.
- YouTube Studio has new AI-powered comment filters that let you search by general topic or mood. You can also find similar comments.
- Instagram for TV expanded to more devices and has more features for Reels viewing.
- Twitch users can export Clips directly to Snapchat.
- Restream can now connect to AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to manage your streams.
- Google Search Generative AI Reports are available to more website owners.
- Google Search released the June 2026 Spam update.
- Beehiiv partnered with Cloudflare to let you control AI crawler access to your site, lets you offer Group Subscriptions to your newsletter, and has a new partnership with Spotify to let podcast subscribers access your content in both places.
- WordPress(dot)com has an experimental Feature Clip tool to turn posts into vertical videos.
- Blog on Offprint, Leaflet or pckt.blog, which are built on AT Protocol, to federate with Bluesky. Bluesky offers a discount on Pro plans.
- Cannes Lions 2026 saw big platforms, brands, and advertisers gather to celebrate ads. Google and YouTube, TikTok, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Snap, LinkedIn and Pinterest announced new ways for Brands and Creators to connect (plus ad design tools). Most interesting? Collab posts on LinkedIn.
- Facebook is bringing back the Facebook Creator Studio app with AI powered insights, brainstorming, and comments. Plus a new Creator Dashboard.
- Plus new Gemini features and more.
YouTube Shorts Player Redesign
YouTube Shorts player in the YouTube app is getting a makeover. Learn more.
- The new Clear Screen mode temporarily hides icons and other overlays.
- You can play Shorts at 2x speed by pressing the side of the screen. You can then pull down to lock the speed at 2x for that Short.
- It’s easier to mute the audio by tapping the screen to pause, then tapping the mute icon.
- A heart ❤️ replaces the like 👍 button
- The dislike👎 button is gone. Use the “Not Interested” and “Don't Recommend This Channel” options in the menu instead. You can see historical Dislikes stats for your Shorts in YouTube Studio Analytics.
YouTube Studio Content Tab Updates
YouTube updated the Content tab in YouTube Studio, better organizing the most important information about video status . (Watch a brief video overview or learn more about the Content tab).
Notices
The Notices column shows any warnings about your content, including policy and copyright issues. There are icons if there is an alert. Hover over the icon to see a card explaining the limitations, or in the mobile app, tap on the icon.- A dash (-) means no current restrictions
- A black (i) in a circle is an informational notice, with info that does not currently affect your content. That can include copyright claims on content before you monetize, or that your video has licensed music.
- A yellow i in a circle means a partial limitation. It includes age restriction, limited ad earnings, comments disabled or other issues that limit your content’s reach, earnings or feature access.
- A red X means a complete limitation, including blocked, removed, locked as private or ineligible to earn revenue.
- A stack of lines with a checkmark means that YouTube is still running system checks.
This replaces the green and yellow monetization icons, which focused on
suitability to run ads. The new Notice icons give more detailed information
about any issues.
Visibility
The Content tab also includes a clearer Visibility column (Public, Private,
Members Only, Unlisted, greyed out if YouTube has placed this on your
video). This is the visibility you have set. Any limitations, like copyright
descriptions, are now in the Notices column.
Earnings
There is also a new Estimated Revenue column (with numbers that take about 2 days to process). This includes earnings from ads, Shopping, YouTube Premium and fan funding.
The Likes/Dislikes ration was removed
The Likes/Dislikes ratio was removed. Information about Dislikes can still be found in Analytics for individual videos on the Engagement tab. You can also use Ask Studio to just ask about likes and dislikes on a video.
Instagram for TV
Instagram for TV is getting new features. It launched small in December 2025, when it was made available for the Amazon Fire TV. It expanded to Google TV in February. This week it’s available for Samsung TVs (2020 or newer) in the US, with new features that are supposed to make it better to watch together with your friends.
- Channels based on your interests, with shelves of Reels organized For You, Popular with Friends, and From People You Follow
- Cast from your phone (including your Instagram Saved tab) to Google TV and Fire TV.
- Stories along the top of the player (just like the web).
- Horizontal video shelf.
- Also being explored (but not available yet) are more creator-friendly formats: longer-form video, episodic series, live on TV.
Instagram’s VP of Product Tessa Lyons says she hopes that by the end of the year “creators really see Instagram as a place for long-form content”, which would (literally) play nicely on TVs.
More YouTube and Video Updates
There is a new Account Status page in the YouTube Studio app (both Android and iOS). This gives an overview of any critical channel issues, including monetization copyright claims and community guidelines strikes, all in one place. This will eventually also be available on desktop
- Tap your profile icon at top right.
- Select “Account Status” in the menu.
- Expand the sections for “Channel violations”, “Ability to Earn”, “Account Safety”, “Access to Features” for details.
- Search by topic (up to 100 characters). These can be very broad, like “comments about my appearance” or “questions about my gear”.
- Use suggested topic filters. Some let you search by mood like “excitement and enthusiasm” or “negative feedback”.
- Find similar comments. Click the 3 dot menu next to the comment, select “Find similar comments”, and it will find comments with a similar meaning.
- Your own comments are not included in the search results.
- This won’t automatically remove or moderate comments. You can choose to remove or report comments.
- Available globally in YouTube Studio on desktop.
- Only available to channel Owners, not Managers.
YouTube published a brief Ask Studio “getting started guide” for Creators.
Twitch users can export and share Clips directly to Snapchat Stories or Spotlight on the web. Clips can also be directly posted to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Learn more about sharing Clips.
Restream now lets you rename individual channels (rather than all of them at once), and you can use AI to generate titles and descriptions.
You can now connect Restream to AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) using their MCP server. This lets your assistant check your streaming setup, create and schedule streams, add or remove streaming destinations, and review analytics. This is not generally available for Gemini (Enterprise users may be able to use this feature).
Web Publishers
Google Search Generative AI Reports in Search Console show how your site is viewed in Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode, and generative AI features in Discover. It launched in the first week of June to select website owners in the UK. This week it started rolling out to more sites in more countries.
Google Search released the June 2026 Spam Update. Google says this is a “normal spam update”
Google Search Console has a new Verification FAQ that should answer your questions about verifying your website in Console.
Beehiiv has a new partnership with Cloudflare, which lets you see how AI crawlers access your web content and decide which services get access. This is available to all beehiiv publishers with a connected custom domain.
Beehiiv now lets you offer Group Subscriptions. The purchaser becomes an account admin, and can distribute the newsletter to individuals in their organization
If you host your podcast on beehiiv, you can now sell premium podcast subscriptions through beehiiv, and give subscribers access to the content on Spotify.
WordPress(dot)com (not to be confused with the free open source WordPress content management system) launched a new experimental Feature Clip tool that uses AI to generates a vertical video from a post. The video is 9:16, 8 seconds long, 720p and can be downloaded as a MP4 file. You can generate 10 clips per site every 24 hours.This is available for Premium, Business and Commerce plans.
If you use WordPress(dot)com to run your newsletter, you can now add a welcome message, describe subscription tiers, and optionally offer a free plan.
If you want to try blogging on a platform built on AT Protocol (which federates with Bluesky), you can get 25% off a Pro plan at Offprint, Leaflet or pckt.blog. All three platforms use the Standard.site schema, and links render quite nicely on Bluesky.
Cannes Lions 2026
This week was the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. And by creativity, they mean ads. It’s been called the Oscars of the advertising industry. Big advertising platforms like Google and Meta use it to announce ad-related updates. And it’s a huge gathering for players in the “creator economy”, including creators and influencers.
One of the themes was new tools to connect Creators and Brands. If you are an advertiser, also do check out the links (there are tons of AI-powered updates, of course).
- Google is adding new tools for advertising on YouTube. Part of that is a new Content & Creator Insights API, “providing richer information about YouTube creators and audiences, enabling more effective media planning for agencies.”
- TikTok added the ability for advertisers to build custom Creator Networks within Content Suite, “allowing advertisers to build a curated pool of creators, employees, partners, or brand advocates to receive campaign briefs or turn their existing brand-relevant videos into high-performing ads”. This is launching with Starbucks, building on their Green Apron Program of employee creators.
- Meta announced that Creator Marketplace will now include Facebook Creators, in addition to Instagram Creators. And the Partnership Ads Hub is making it easier for businesses to find creator content to turn into an ad, with creator consent (creators can give pre-permission to speed up the process), and paid performance insights. The new Meta Creator Marketing Hub will launch later this year, combining the Creator Marketplace and Partnership Ads Hub.
- Meta is bringing Live Video Ads to Instagram and expanding them globally on Facebook to “expand awareness of shopping streams”. They are also expanding the Affiliate Partner program, adding new live shopping tools, and making it easier for viewers to buy.
- Snapchat will be launching the Snap Creator Network, an AI-powered system to help match creators and brands. This is a “first step toward a more agentic creator marketplace, where AI can turn advertiser intent into ready-to-launch creator campaigns, managing discovery, activation, and fulfillment end-to-end.”
- LinkedIn added a new Collaborative Posts feature that lets pages and members share post authorship. All collaborators are listed at the top of the post. This is being tested over the next few months.
- Pinterest is adding AI-powered shopping experiences.
More Social Media
Pinterest now lets creators link their Amazon Storefront, easily tag Amazon products in pins, and feature items from their Storefront on their profile.
Facebook is bringing back the Facebook Creator Studio app, “reimagined as an AI-powered companion app.” Facebook originally removed Creator Studio in 2023, pushing Creators to use its Business Suite platform instead. The new app includes:
- Facebook Creator Assistant, which you can use to ask questions about your content, get personalized guidance or brainstorm ideas.
- Personalized insights into your content.
- AI-powered comment prioritization, highlighting the “most important” comments and drafting replies “in your voice”.
- Creator Dashboard, which will be split from the Professional Dashboard. There will also be a separate Business Dashboard. Meta finally realized the needs of Creators and businesses are not the same.
Tools
Gemini has new features:
- There’s a Google Play connected app to find and install apps and make in-app purchases.
- Businesses can connect their Google Business Profile for real-time insights, and there are new business notebooks to organize your files.
Worth Reading
Aresluna: Show your hands honor for the strange power they bring you. This is an interactive history of designing “finger-friendly interactions” on typewriters, keyboards, and screens.
Social Media Today: Meta plans to replace 90% of content review staff with AI. What could possibly go wrong?
Looking toward the future in Scientific American: Young American Scientists
Thanks for reading! 🌼
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Spam and personal attacks are not allowed. Any comment may be removed at my own discretion ~ Peggy