Bluesky "Live", Discord Expands Age Checks, Million Dollar Fan, + TikTok's Trend Report

Good day and welcome to this week's newsletter! As expected, January has been relatively quiet for platform news - it's usually not until the last week of the month that we start to see updates and plans ramp up. That said, there's been some fascinating creator stories from Luminosity's purchase by the original founder (and hopefully payments to creators that its previous owners still owe), a potential scam called Million Dollar Fan that resulted in a Reddit moderator becoming a meme, and Twitch's top creator putting the CEO on blast. Chaotic start to the year... so, let's jump into it!

🟪 TWITCH

• Twitch added two Neurosama emotes for back-to-back Hype Train records: NeuroJAM and EvilJAM.
• Any remaining 35% Shared Discount promotions can be used until January 31. At that point, the system will reset (possibly with new offerings - maybe even a bonus?)
• New Badge: Umbrella Corporation
• New Emote: WoWMidnight

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube is now allowing full ad revenue for Controversial Issues, specifically abortion, self-harm, suicide, and domestic abuse, when discussed in a non-graphic manner.

⬛ TIKTOK

• TikTok's Next Trend Report suggests that doomscrolling is in decline, while a growing segment of users (25%) is using Search within the first 30 seconds of opening the app.

🟦 DISCORD & TWITTER X

• Discord age verification is expanding to more countries, including Poland, Austria, and Ukraine.
• You can now send dynamic time updates by typing @time.
• Discord will soon move from Tenor to Giphy for GIFs.
• On Twitch, people still generally link to Twitter instead of X. I will always call it Twitter.