When you think of study aids, TikTok is likely not what comes to mind. And, there’s probably a good reason for that. Scrolling your For You page may be entertaining, but it’s rarely productive.

But, a growing group of study influencers might be changing that. From #booktok, #studytok and #edutok, there are dozens of accounts that can help with study tips, math tutoring and even college admissions advice.

To be clear, it’s still a good idea to limit how much time you spend scrolling. And watching study-themed TikToks is not a substitute for… actually studying. But, videos from academically-minded TikTokers can offer advice on learning tough subjects and serve as inspiration for building new and productive study habits.

What to look for (and avoid)

If you’re looking for study help, well-established hashtags like #studytok or #edutok are a great place to start. Many tutors also post to TikTok, and you can find subject-specific content by adding “tutor” or “help” to the topic, like #mathtuor, #physicshelp etc.

But, as with everything on TikTok, not all study content is equal. And for every helpful account, there are also those who are sharing unhelpful shortcuts and too-good-to-be-true “study hacks.” So avoid accounts that post shady “advice” that’s actually cheating, like how to get an AI to solve your math homework or write an essay for you. And be wary of anyone who is more focused on selling products than usable advice.

Here are a few accounts that actually do a good job in the studying space.

Gohar Khan Goharsguide

Gohar Khan is most well-known for his college admissions advice, which he shares on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. The 22-year-old recently graduated from MIT, but before that he was also accepted to Yale and Stanford. Now, he makes videos advising teens on how they can boost their chances of getting into Ivy League and other top-tier schools.

He shares videos with advice on all aspects of preparing for college, from application and essay-writing help, to how to choose a major once you get there. Even if an Ivy isn’t your ultimate goal, he also posts more general tips that will be helpful for students of all levels, In fact, some of his most popular content is geared around how to do homework more quickly, how to find the motivation to study and how to improve your test scores.

Kyle Johnson

Book lovers will appreciate Kyle Johnson’s TikToks for his concise but thoughtful book reviews and reading recommendations, but Johnson, who posts under the account panic_kyle, shares more than just reading lists. He also shares analysis of literary classics and other popular books you may often find as assigned reading in English class..

If you’re looking for a shortcut to avoid reading altogether, Johnson’s account won’t help much. He typically only gives a very brief summary of the books he covers. But if you want to think more deeply about literary themes, or get inspiration for an essay, his videos break down complex literary themes in an easy to digest way. He also shares more general advice, like how to take notes while reading fiction or how to analyze literature.

Your Bummy Math Tutor

I was awful at math when I was in school. Like, truly, awful; I had to repeat algebra three separate times. To the surprise of absolutely no one, I did not score well on the math portion of my SAT… or any other standardized test. And while I don’t know if any amount of TikTok-length videos would have helped back then, Your Bummy Math Tutor’s content makes me think it might have.

YBMT takes math questions from the SAT and practice tests and explains how to solve them, along with strategies for approaching different types of problems. It’s all fairly straightforward and yet, as a lifetime hater of math, the content is also way more engaging than any math class I can remember. Luckily for everyone, I haven’t had to do any algebra for more than a decade. But after watching enough of YBMT’s videos, I kind of feel like maybe I could solve a few problems that would have completely stumped my teenage self. At least, I might have had a few extra tools to try.

Study with soybean

You’ve probably heard of bullet journaling, the note-taking fad that’s part habit tracker, part diary and part to-do list organizer. While it can seem intimidating to start mapping out your entire life in a bullet journal, the system can be a useful study aid.

Study with soybean is a bullet journal pro whose content combines journaling inspo with study tips practical advice on how to take better notes. Her videos break down different styles of note-taking, and how to transform your notes into flashcards and other study aids. She also posts more creative content, like how to make your own greeting cards and improve your handwriting.

Snapchat’s messaging and video chat features are no longer limited to just the mobile app. More than a decade after the Snapchat app first launched, company is introducing Snapchat for Web, a new browser-based version of its service.

Snapchat+ subscribers will gain access to the new web app first, but will eventually it will be available to all of the users. It will support messaging and video calling for now, though the company plans to add support for its augmented reality lenses and the ability to send photo and video Snaps “soon.” 

Snap also tried to build some of its signature privacy features into the web version. For example, it will block screenshot attempts it’s able to detect, like those taken with keyboard shortcuts. The company also added a “privacy screen” that blocks the contents of users' chats if they click away into a separate window.

Snap

It’s not the first time Snap has experimented with desktop or browser-based features. The company previously made some Stories posts viewable on web browsers, and brought its AR effects to the desktop with its Snap Camera app. But it is the first time some of Snapchat’s core messaging features will be available to users outside of the mobile app.

The change could help Snapchat increase engagement with its most dedicated users. A Snap spokesperson noted that video calling has become more popular among Snapchat users in recent years, and that a desktop experience can be more conducive to longer video calls. It could also help Snap replicate the experience of apps like Discord where teens tend to use chats as places to hang out while doing other online activities.

Notably, there are no ads or other revenue-generating features in Snapchat for Web, though a spokesperson said the company could eventually bring other aspects of the mobile app to the browser version of the service — if there’s enough demand.

Facebook is testing giving users the ability to create up to five profiles on the platform, a major change to its longstanding policy that only allows people to have a single account and identity on the service. The upcoming test was reported byBloomberg, which notes that it’s Facebook’s latest ploy to stave off declining engagement, particularly among younger users.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the test. “To help people tailor their experience based on interests and relationships, we’re testing a way for people to have more than one profile tied to a single Facebook account,” the spokesperson said. “Anyone who uses Facebook must continue to follow our rules.”

It’s not clear how big the initial test will be, or if Facebook plans to eventually make it available more widely. If it does, it could significantly alter the dynamics of how people interact on the social network. For one, it would make it easier for people to maintain different personas on the platform, or create separate pages targeted for different friend groups or interests. It’s also a major shift from Facebook’s longtime policy of requiring “real names.” 

Unlike Instagram, which allows users to create multiple accounts and doesn’t require them to use their real names, Facebook has had strict — and oftencontroversial — rules about users’ identities, regularly suspending users it catches using multiple accounts. In some cases, the service will even ask users to verify the name on their profile by providing a copy of an official I.D.

But users who have access to multiple profiles will now only need to use their real name on their main profile. Additional profiles will be able to use nicknames or other identities as long as they don’t break other rules, like those barring impersonation.

That the company is now changing its approach to users’ names and identities is a sign of just how important it is for Facebook to reverse recent declines in engagement. Mark Zuckerberg had said the platform will reorient itself to be more appealing to younger users in an effort to better compete with TikTok and other rivals. The app is also planning a significant redesign that will emphasize recommendations more than posts from friends.

Back in February, TikTok said it was working on new ways to age-restrict certain types of content in an effort to ramp up its safety features for teens. Now, the company is sharing more about its rating system, called Content Levels, which it plans to roll out “in the coming weeks.”

The company has compared its approach to the ratings systems used by the movie and video game industry. It’s meant to filter out videos with more “mature” themes from the feeds of its teen users. It will apply to videos that wouldn’t otherwise break TikTok’s rules but may be inappropriate for younger users of the app.

With the change, when teens between the ages of 13 and 17 encounter a video that contains “mature or complex themes,” they’ll instead see a notice that the video is age restricted. “When we detect that a video contains mature or complex themes, for example, fictional scenes that may be too frightening or intense for younger audiences, a maturity score will be allocated to the video to help prevent those under 18 from viewing it across the TikTok experience,” TikTok explains in a blog post.

The company didn’t share how it would determine these maturity scores, or what criteria it would use to classify its videos. TikTok noted that the feature is still an “early version” and that they plan to add additional capabilities in the future. Company executives have previously said they also want TikTok users to be able to choose what type of content they are comfortable with.

TikTok

In the meantime, the app is also adding a new way to filter out unwanted topics from their “For You” page. The update, also expected in the coming weeks, will enable users to mute certain words or hashtags they no longer wish to see videos about.

TikTok also offered an update on its work to avoid potentially problematic “repetitive patterns” in its For You recommendations. The company previously said it was testing ways to avoid overloading people with a lot of content about topics that can be potentially troubling, like mental health or eating disorders. Now, TikTok says those early tests have been successful, and that users in the United States are less likely to see many videos about these topics at once. TikTok is now working on making the feature available in more countries and languages.

Twitter’s role in the January 6th insurrection is once again in the spotlight. During a hearing on Tuesday, the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack played testimony from a former Twitter employee who said they tried to warn others at the company that there would be violence on January 6th.

The committee pointed to a December 19th tweet from former President Donald Trump in which he promised a “wild” protest in Washington D.C. on January 6th. The tweet, they said, “served as a call to action, and in some cases as a call to arms” to his supporters.

By January 5th, the former Twitter employee said that it was clear the protest would turn violent, but that “no intervention was coming.” The committee didn’t identify the former employee, whose voice was obscured in the recorded testimony. Representative Jamie Raskin said the former employee “was on the team responsible for platform and content moderation policies” and worked at the company throughout 2020 and 2021.

“I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if we made no intervention into what I saw, people were going to die,” the employee said. “And on January 5th, I realized no intervention was coming.”

The employee also stated that Twitter had considered changing its rules earlier in 2020 following Trump’s comments telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a presidential debate, but that the company ultimately declined to do so.

When asked if another Twitter user would have been able to take the same actions as Trump without being suspended, the employee replied “no.” They stated that Twitter enjoyed the notoriety that came with being Trump’s preferred social media platform. “I believe Twitter relished in the knowledge that they were also the favorite and most used service of the former president, and enjoyed having that sort of power within the social media ecosystem.”

In a statement, Jessica Herrera-Flanigan, VP of Public Policy at Twitter, said the company is “clear-eyed” about its role in the events leading up to January 6th. 

“We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for and respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election,” Herrera-Flanigan said. “On January 6th, we leveraged the systems we had built leading up to the election to respond to the unprecedented attack in real-time and are committed to iterating on this work in order to address violent extremism in the US and globally.”

Twitter’s lawyers have hit back at Elon Musk for his attempt to bail on his $44 billion takeover of the company. The company said Friday, immediately following Musk’s official notice that he wanted to terminate the deal, that it was prepared to pursue legal action against him. Now, in a new filing with the SEC, Twitter goes further, calling Musk’s actions “invalid and wrongful.”

Musk and his lawyers previously accused the company of making “false and misleading” statements about the number of bots and fake accounts on its platform. They claimed, without offering evidence, that number of bots could be “wildly higher” than what Twitter has stated.

Now, Twitter’s lawyers have responded. In a letter to Musk’s attorneys, Twitter denies that it has reneged on its side of the agreement. In fact, it goes on to state that Musk himself has “knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the Agreement.” It cites, among other provisions, the clause that stipulates Musk is barred from disparaging Twitter or its employees.

The filing is the latest sign that Twitter is gearing up for what could be a drawn out legal battle with Musk. The company’s board, which is facing a multi-billion dollar hit to Twitter’s share price since the saga with Musk began, has said it will sue Musk in an effort to force him to comply with the deal. The company has even hired a new law firm that specializes in corporate mergers. But whether a legal battle will result in Musk actually owning Twitter is still very much unclear.

Twitter is opening its conversation-leaving feature to everyone. Now, all Twitter users will be able to use the service’s “unmention” feature, the company announced.

Twitter describes “unmention” as the ability to leave an unwanted conversation on the platform. When used, it unlinks the user’s handle from the Twitter thread, so they will no longer be tagged in future tweets, and others won’t be able to reply to them from the same thread. Though it won’t prevent others from continuing to jump into the conversation, it will at least shield the person’s replies and notifications.

The feature has been in the works for more than a year. Twitter first teased the idea last summer, saying it was meant to prevent the kind of “unwanted attention” that can often lead to harassment. It started testing it in April, but it was limited to a small group of users on the web only. Now, with the update, anyone will be able to remove themselves from a thread regardless of whether they are using Twitter’s apps or website.

The update is the latest way Twitter has tried to give users more ways to control how people can interact with them, particularly at moments when they may be more susceptible to harassment. The service has also added reply-limiting features, and has been testing a “safety mode,” which can automatically block problematic accounts.

The Biden White House took a step toward shoring up some of the privacy issues that have been raised following the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. In a new executive order addressing abortion access and other issues, the White House suggested that it’s trying to increase privacy protections for people seeking reproductive healthcare, though it’s not clear what policies may change as a result of the action.

The order points to “the potential threat to patient privacy caused by the transfer and sale of sensitive health-related data and by digital surveillance.” And it offers some guidance to other agencies, like the FTC, though it stops short of proposing new regulations.

Instead, the order seems to leave much at the discretion of the FTC and the Department of Health and Human Services. For example, it says the chair of the FTC is “is encouraged to consider actions … to protect consumers’ privacy when seeking information about and provision of reproductive healthcare services.” It also states that the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should “consider actions to educate consumers on how best to protect their health privacy and limit the collection and sharing of their sensitive health-related information.”

Biden’s executive order comes after privacy advocates and activists have warned that the lack of federal privacy regulations could have dire consequences for people seeking abortions post-Roe. Period tracking apps have gotten outsize attention, but experts say the issue runs far deeper than just one type of app. And while the executive order doesn’t touch on issues like data brokers or the vast collection of personal information by tech companies, the issue has gotten the attention of Congress. On the same day as Biden's executive order, a group of Democrats from the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into five data brokers and the companies behind five popular cycle tracking apps.

Elon Musk is officially trying to pull the plug on the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. In an SEC filing, Musk’s lawyers said the Tesla CEO wishes to terminate the agreement because of “false and misleading representations” made by Twitter.

Twitter and Musk have been squabbling for months over how the company counts the number of bots and fake accounts on the platform. In the letter filed with the SEC, Musk’s lawyers state that Twitter has both withheld information and misled Musk about the true numbers.

Twitter has long stated that fake accounts make up less than 5 percent of its total users, and it turned over some of its internal data to Musk to bolster those claims. In the SEC filing, Musk’s lawyers state that “it appears Twitter is dramatically understating” the number.

Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Developing…

Twitter has laid off dozens of employees amid growing uncertainty around Elon Musk’s acquisition. The company cut 30 percent of its talent acquisition team, which includes recruiters and others charged with bringing on new hires, The Wall Street Journalreports. Twitter told The Journal that “fewer than 100 people” had been let go and that it was only the talent acquisition team that was affected.

Twitter had previously announced a partial hiring freeze as part of a broader attempt to cut costs as it attempts to finalize its acquisition by Elon Musk. The status of the deal is uncertain as Musk has threatened to pull out of the agreement, citing concerns about the number of bots on the platform. On Thursday, The Washington Postreported that the deal was in “serious jeopardy,” and that “it was likely a change in direction from Musk’s team would come soon.”

The subject of layoffs reportedly came up at recent Twitter all-hands with Musk. The Tesla CEO said he was concerned about costs at Twitter but didn't directly answer a question about whether job cuts were on the table. "It depends," he said, according to CNBC.

In a post on LinkedIn, Ingrid Johnson, a senior technical recruiter at Twitter, wrote that it was “a really tough day.” “There are people losing their jobs that have been there over a decade,” she wrote. “If Twitter has chosen to spend potential billions suing Elon and maintaining a falsely inflated stock price at the expense of the people who gave their lives building the company— that is an even more tragic story.”

Twitter isn’t the only tech company to recently pull back on hiring or lay off employees. Meta recently said it would slow its hiring as it faces “serious times.” Netflix, Unity, Coinbase and Paypal have all recently cut jobs as well.