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Creators

YouTube, Instagram, SoundCloud, and other online platforms are changing the way people create and consume media. The Verge's Creators section covers the people using these platforms, what they're making, and how those platforms are changing (for better and worse) in response to the vloggers, influencers, podcasters, photographers, musicians, educators, designers, and more who are using them. The Verge’s Creators section also looks at the way creators are able to turn their projects into careers — from Patreons and merch sales, to ads and Kickstarters — and the ways they’re forced to adapt to changing circumstances as platforms crack down on bad actors and respond to pressure from users and advertisers. New platforms are constantly emerging, and existing ones are ever-changing — what creators have to do to succeed is always going to look different from one year to the next.

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An AI junk site used AI to rip off an AI ethics guide.

A Poynter article about using AI in newsrooms was ripped off and rewritten by a pink slime site called Tech Gate. Guess they didn’t read the guide.

I took a browse around the site and saw some familiar faces — Tech Gate also republished a mangled version of a Vergecast segment, including using our image. My favorite line:

Simply after that, we launch Nilay Patel into his Mexican vacation, and we do a newsy lightning spherical.


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Even LinkedIn is trying TikTok-like videos now.

LinkedIn confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s testing a short-form video feed housed within a new “video” tab on the app, which one user shows off here.

The Microsoft-owned platform is the latest to jump on the vertical video bandwagon, following Twitch, Reddit, Spotify, and even Netflix in experimenting with similar features.


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What about other Chinese-owned apps?

It’s not just TikTok — other apps like Shein, Temu, and WeChat are popular in the US, too. The TikTok ban focuses on ByteDance-owned subsidiaries including CapCut and Lemon8, but includes a carve out for popular shopping apps, The Washington Post reports. On the other hand, “everything app” WeChat could be in a gray area.


I can’t wait to get my paws on this ridiculous cursor.

Developer Sam Chiet, who you may recognize for creating the “asshole goose” that wreaks havoc on your desktop, was inspired to make this stretching cat cursor after it was suggested as a bad design concept. Looks pretty fun to me!

Chiet says he’s planning to release it “soon” — otherwise you can click here to watch a speedrun of how he made it.


A GIF demonstrating the cat cursor made by developer Sam Chiet.
I don’t care how impractical this is, or how quickly I’ll get sick of it...let me bring some whimsy to my desktop.
Image: @SamNChiet
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Twitter
Apple made a YouTube channel dedicated to developer content.

In addition to announcing a June 10th date for WWDC 2024, Apple also revealed an official YouTube channel that currently houses the sessions from WWDC 2023.

Apple previously only made videos from WWDC available from its developer website and app, but bringing them to YouTube should make them easier to find.


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Youtube
It didn’t take long for Canva’s Affinity acquisition to feel ominous.

Affinity users asking if the one-time-purchase creative software will adopt Canva’s subscription-based approach may not feel reassured by the response from Serif CEO Ashley Hewson.

“The V2 app still available as a one-off purchase and everyone who’s bought our apps previously of course can still use them in perpetuity moving forward.” He added that updates — for V2 at least — will be delivered “free of charge.”

A new FAQ page also says that “there are no changes to our current pricing model planned at this time.


Can AI fix online shopping?

Companies like Amazon, eBay, and Shopify promise AI tools will improve our experience of buying things online. The fashion brand Finesse even uses AI to design clothes — but that doesn’t mean products are actually good.

I tried $400 worth of AI clothes, plus product image and text generators to see how they live up to the AI hype.


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Kamala Harris insists “we do not intend to ban TikTok.”

In an interview with ABC News, the vice president said the goal of the bill recently passed by the House is to force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell:

We need to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention to ban TikTok... It’s an income generator for many people, what it does in terms of allowing people to share information in a free way, in a way that allows people to have discourse, it’s very important.


Federation is the future of social media, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber

The head of Threads and Mastodon competitor Bluesky on why she thinks decentralization is the way forward in a post-Twitter internet.

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Youtube
The “Macintosh Studio” almost makes me want an iPad Mini.

Product designer Scott Yu-Jan had the idea to marry an iPad Mini to a Mac Studio inside a 3D-printed approximation of an original Macintosh. It’s not just a fun gimmick — this thing looks delightfully practical, too.


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Twitter
Is this what X will look like on a smart TV?

Earlier this month, a Fortune story reported that one of X’s latest moves since Twitter entered its Musk era involves whipping up a video app for smart TVs, with one source calling it “identical” to YouTube’s own.

Assuming this video posted by app researcher Nima Owji is what Fortune’s source saw... yeah, I’d reckon there’s some resemblance.


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Youtube
“I now have NES cartridge purée.”

James Channel altered an original copy of NES Open Tournament Golf so that it can both be played on a Nintendo Entertainment and used as a fully-functioning Nintendo Entertainment System.

Or it can play itself, like some sort of Mariourobouros.


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Google was ordered to identify people who watched certain YouTube videos.

Police investigating suspected Bitcoin money laundering wanted info on viewers of certain tutorial videos viewed over 30,000 times, Forbes reported.

The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos. 

The documents reportedly don’t reveal whether Google gave over the information.


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TikTok
All that data has to go somewhere.

Set to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” a TikTok user cut together idyllic, quaint clips of their hometown — followed by a bunch of sterile data centers being built.

On TikTok, the medium is the message. Not everyone seems to know what a data center even is (the recommended search query below the video is “data center explained”) but the video works. This trend, as they say, has potential.


Reddit’s stock price nearly doubled in its first day as a public company.

It ended trading at roughly $50, which means the business is valued at about $9.5 billion. That’s quite a pop from the $34 that Reddit priced its shares at going into the IPO. As a result, everyone who bought in at that price— like Reddit power users — saw a nice gain today.


Reddit Begins Trading On New York Stock Exchange
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman watches as the company goes public.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
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The Verge
Tennessee’s ELVIS Act becomes law.

Governor Bill Lee signed the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, which updates the state’s right of publicity laws that dictate how a person’s likeness can be used. The ELVIS Act expands the law to protect voice, too, in the age of AI clones.

In 2023 I wrote about the patchwork system of right of publicity laws in the US. Tennessee — with its significant entertainment industry — has some of the strongest laws in the country.


Vernor Vinge, science fiction writer and creator of the concept of the technological singularity, has died at the age of 79.

According to Ars Technica, Vinge, a professor and computer scientist who was well-known for his hard science fiction novels such as A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbow’s End, passed away yesterday. A truly excellent author, he postulated that AI will one day surpass the understanding of its human creators; he described this singularity theory in a 1993 essay. But it is probably for his far-reaching and absorbing fiction that Vinge will be best known.


Image: Tor Science Fiction
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TikTok
One Black T-Shirt T-Shirt For Men Classic Tee Black Tee Black T-Shirt For Men For Going Out For Athletics For Staying Home For Life in General T-Shirt For Men Classic Tee Black T-Shirt, please.

From now on, anytime anyone wants to understand the chaotic mess that Amazon has become, I’m just going to send them this TikTok.


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Senators will get a closed door security briefing on TikTok.

The FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Justice Department will brief senators Wednesday on national security threats posed by TikTok, Reuters reports. Senate staffers will get a separate briefing Tuesday.

It could be an important tipping point, as House members emerged from their briefings confident in their votes before overwhelmingly passing a bill that could lead to TikTok’s ouster from the US.


The return of Gamergate is smaller and sadder

A group of gamers has mobilized a harassment campaign against a story consultant company, marginalized developers, and journalists in protest of what they see as ‘forced’ diversity in gaming.

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TikTok’s (formerly) favorite congressman is really, really sorry.

“I did not handle this situation well from top to bottom, and that is why I have been completely roasted on this app,” said Rep. Jeff Jackson, who posted an explanation of his vote to ban TikTok on TikTok.

He tried to clear up his vote by explaining he thinks a ban is unlikely, but some commenters are still livid.


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You can watch March Madness games for free in the Vision Pro.

The NCAA’s March Madness Live app is also getting a new, swipeable vertical video highlights feed.

The “Vision Pro compatibility” means the iPad app, so you won’t get any “spatial” features, but at least it’s there (unlike, say, YouTube). What, did the Samsung Gear VR app not do well or something?

The NCAA also says it’s offering “expanded live game radio” for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.