Great Internet Outage, Summer Game Fest Record, + YouTube Loosens Rules

Hello! I hope you've had a lovely weekend and are ready to hit the second half of the month running! I took some time off to visit family and ignore the digital world for a bit - much needed. But, the news doesn't stop, so let's jump into it as there are some really interesting stories and great opportunities this week! Definitely worth a deep read!

🟪 TWITCH

• Creators will soon be able to search their clips on mobile.
• New Twitch Enforcement Note on Gambling offers new examples. (No new rules.)
• New Twitch Enforcement Note on Dangerous Driving offers new examples. (No new rules.)
• New Twitch Enforcement Note on Unauthorized Sharing of Private Information offers new examples. (No new rules.)
• Twitch is aiming for ads to represent 50% of their earnings (they currently make up about 33% of Twitch's total revenue). Fun fact: Amazon Prime subscribers sit through 6 minutes of ads.
• Twitch (and seemingly much of the internet) experienced a significant outage on Thursday.
• A cryptocurrency was slated to run ads on Twitch starting today; however, after an internal investigation, the campaign was stopped before running, as crypto ads are not permitted.
• An updated EleGiggle emote returned after the old version was removed 6 months ago.
• Many creators were invited to the self-encoding program for 2K streams.
• Twitch donated $10,000 to the Immune Deficiency Foundation due to the $2000 people used in Bits on Twitch's channel during Twitchcon.
• Interestingly, Twitch seems to have warned various streamers about promoting Kick in their panels. Not fully confirmed at this point, but it seems to be a common thread. I'll share more soon.

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube is testing a new tool to set a different thumbnail based on the viewer's language.
• A new test runs non-skippable 30-second ads for regular ad campaigns. These were previously limited to premium placement.
• YouTube quietly loosened the rules that guide its moderation of videos to allow for more 'freedom of expression'.
• YouTube contributed $55B to the US GDP in 2024, supporting more than 490,000 full-time jobs.
• 54.8% of YouTube creators "Regularly" or "Sometimes" create content in batches.
• Posts will now appear in the Shorts feed.

🟦 DISCORD & TWITTER X

• France is considering labeling Twitter X as an adult site, thus requiring age verification.
• Gifting Discord Nitro will earn you a new avatar decoration.
• Discord is testing using any emotes (including user uploads) in channel titles.