YouTube x Amazon Shopping, Meta Settles, Pokémon Badges + Most Influential Creators

Good morning and welcome to the newsletter! Keeping things short and sweet today - so if you enjoy my work and if it helps keep you informed, consider joining Premium OR gifting a Premium membership to a friend! It helps me keep doing this and means a lot. Thank you! Now, let's get into it.

🟪 TWITCH

• SUBtember officially started on Friday.
• Links will soon be Held for Review, rather than fully allowed or blocked.
• Twitch started an experiment with new Viewership Trend Labels; however, it has paused the rollout due to community feedback. A rather low-value idea imo, but glad to see they still listen to the community on rare occasions.
• Twitch was unprepared for the release of Netflix's GTA 6 extended trailer, resulting in the service being degraded for nearly 2 hours. Viewership spiked by ~50%, but still far below historic highs, so it's odd that it crashed so badly. Embarrassing for the CTO.
• The 2026 Twitchcon San Diego schedule is now available.
• Twitch has a new Pokemon Badge feature aimed at getting people to spend time and money on the platform.
• New Paid Badges: Lego Batman, Diablo, Rainbow Six
• New Free Badges: Ironmouse Mouseathon, Pokemon World, NASA Telescope

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube now allows creators to tag (and earn commission) from Amazon sales. The fact that Twitch still has no integration is ridiculous...
• YouTube continues to refresh the UI with new experiences.

⬛ TIKTOK

• TikTok is updating the Community Guidelines (effective September 24, 2026), with new enforcement, remediation paths, and more.
• Gaming Content is on the rise on TikTok Live.

🟦 OTHER PLATFORMS

• Kick now has stream schedules.
• WhatNot has launched a Trust Center.