Google has quietly increased the price of YouTube Premium by a significant $2 from $12 to $14, according to the updated signup page spotted by 9to5Google. The annual price jumped to $20, from $120 to $140 per month, a savings of about $28 over paying month-by-month. YouTube also increased the price of Music Premium from $10 to $11 per month, matching similar increases by Apple and Amazon. The price increases weren't accompanied by any kind of official announcement.

On top of eliminating ads, YouTube Premium offers features like offline viewing and background playback (without it, your video will stop playing when the app is minimized or your phone screen is off). It also allows higher-quality 1080p streaming on some platforms. 

Last year, Google hiked the family Premium plan to $23 per month, and charged existing month-by-month subscribers the new fee the following month. Previously, the company was more generous — when it rebranded YouTube Red to Premium in 2018, it kept the former's $10 price for subscribers and is still honoring it for some users, according to 9to5Google. 

At the same time that it's boosting prices, YouTube has been cracking down on ad-blockers that lets you view videos without ads. Some users have seen a pop-up indicating YouTube will block their ability to play videos unless they disable their ad blocker or whitelist the site. "Ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide," it reads. To go ad-free, the company tells users to get a YouTube Premium subscription so "creators can still get paid."

Remember Twitter Notes? It was supposed to be the feature that let Twitter users write whatever they want, blowing past the typical Twitter character limit. At the time, that limit was only 280 characters. After several updates this year, Twitter Blue subscribers can tweet up to 25,000 characters. Now, CEO Elon Musk has seemingly confirmed that the company is still working on the Notes feature, but is rebranding it to Twitter Articles.

In a reply to a tweet noting the name change, Musk confirms that Articles will be the place to post “long, complex articles with mixed media.” He goes on to say that “You could publish a book if you want.”

Officially announced last year, Notes was pitched as “a way to write longer on Twitter,” and was initially limited to select users in Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom and the United States. Notably, this was announced before the Elon Musk takeover later that year, but after he announced his intention to buy the company. This is the first time Twitter has acknowledged the feature since then.

As for what this feature will look like, think blog posts but on Twitter. Articles, which will be separate from the main timeline, is an area where users can post long-form content without the typical limitations of a tweet. That means you’ll be able to embed photos, videos and other tweets within an Article. Users can share Articles in tweets, and published Articles will show up in your Twitter profile.

It’s unclear at this time when or if Articles will be available to the public. The feature is still in the experimental stage it has been in since last year, and is only available to a select number of users.

Facebook is revamping its in-app video hub to give its content an Instagram-style makeover. The changes will bring Reels’ editing tools to all Facebook videos, as well as a new “Explore” section to highlight trending clips and other recommendations.

It also comes with a new name. The tab previously known as “Facebook Watch” will now simply be called “Video.” The section, which will host short-form clips like Reels as well as live video and longer form content, will continue to live at the top of the Facebook app.

The new branding comes as Facebook’s video strategy has changed dramatically since the “Watch” section debuted in 2017. At the time, the company was heavily pushing TV shows and other longform content created for Facebook. Now, much of Meta’s video ambitions center around its TikTok competitor, Reels, and other algorithmically-recommended clips. Mark Zuckerberg has been saying for the last year that his goal is to shift Facebook into becoming more of a “discovery engine” that surfaces more content outside of users’ social graphs.

Some of those themes are apparent in Facebook’s new video tab, which has a new “Explore” section similar to the Explore grid on Instagram. There, users will find clusters of trending video and other recommendations grouped by hashtag.

Meta is also taking steps to integrate Reels on Facebook more closely with those Instagram. Facebook has encouraged users to cross-post Reels from Instagram to Facebook for some time. Now, the company is also unifying comments across the two apps so users no longer need to switch to the Instagram app in order to comment on a Reel that originated on Instagram.

The changes are beginning to roll out now to the Facebook app and website.

Twitter’s ad-revenue sharing program for creators has officially launched — and it’s reportedly already begun paying eligible Blue subscribers. Elon Musk announced the initiative in February, but with scant details about how it would work, nobody knew quite what to expect. However, some high-profile users report today they’ve received notifications about incoming deposits — including one user claiming he’s set to receive over $24,000. The rewards are based on ads in replies to eligible users’ content.

The program incentivizes creators who contribute popular content that drives ads — rewarding accounts that help Twitter make money (while driving new Blue subscriptions). “This means that creators can get a share in ad revenue starting in the replies to their posts,” a Twitter help article published today reads. “This is part of our effort to help people earn a living directly on Twitter.” Musk tweeted today that payouts “will be cumulative from when I first promised to do so in February.”

However, the bar is high to receive a transfer from the Musk-owned social media company. The support post says the revenue-sharing system applies to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations subscribers with at least five million post impressions in each of the past three months. They’ll also need to pass a human review and adhere to the company’s Creator Subscriptions policies; Twitter will then pay eligible users using a Stripe account. The company says it will soon launch an application process, found under Monetization in account settings.

The move aims to make Twitter a more attractive platform for content creators. It may not be a coincidence that the program arrived about a week after Meta launched its Twitter rival Threads, which didn’t take long to gain traction — gaining over 100 million users in its first five days. That’s higher than previous record-holders ChatGPT and TikTok.

Twitter has published an update on how its "Freedom of Speech Not Reach" moderation approach is working, and according to the company, it has seen some encouraging results. In April, the website started limiting the reach of tweets violating its hateful conduct policy and applying a label to them that reads: "Visibility limited: this tweet may violate Twitter's rules against hateful conduct." Apparently, Twitter has applied the label to more than 700,000 posts since then and has proactively prevented ads from appearing adjacent to those content. 

The company also said that the label reduces the reach of a post by 81 percent, thereby effectively limiting the visibility of posts that potentially exhibit hateful conduct. In addition, Twitter revealed in its update that more than one-third of users choose to delete labeled tweets themselves once they've been notified that they have violated the website's policy and only four percent of authors have appealed labels. 

The company charging for API access means most researchers studying hate speech can't independently verify these claims. But Twitter is clearly claiming that its approach has been effective so far. In fact, the website is pushing through with its plan to expand its labels and include more types of policy violations. According to its announcement, it will now also label and downrank posts that violate its Abusive Behavior and Violent Speech policies. Tweets that will be labeled in the coming weeks include posts with malicious content targeting individuals, those that encourage others to harass an individual or group of people, those that threaten to inflict physical harm on others, and tweets that encourage others to commit acts of violence or harm. 

Meta's Threads has blown up this week, with more than 70 million registered accounts being registered within around 40 hours of the app going live. One of those users is a particular thorn in the side of Elon Musk as they're posting what the Twitter owner once referred to as "basically assassination coordinates" for him.

In reality, the person behind Elonjet, Jack Sweeney, is using publicly available flight data to share the whereabouts of Musk's private jet in near-real-time. Sweeney used to post that information on Twitter, which bothered Musk long before he bought the company. Musk offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account, but the offer was rejected (a counteroffer of $50,000 or an internship at one of Musk's companies never panned out).

In December, a couple months after Musk bought Twitter, the Elonjet account was permanently suspended. Twitter updated its private information rules around the same time to limit users to sharing "publicly available location information after a reasonable time has elapsed, so that the individual is no longer at risk for physical harm."

Sweeney created a new Twitter account that shows the location of Musk's jet on a 24-hour delay, which was A-OK under the tweaked policy. Elonjet accounts on other platforms display more up-to-date information, including Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Mastodon and Bluesky.A subreddit is tracking the plane too.

Elonjet never truly went away for long, but there's something quite fitting about it showing up on Threads. The new app is a blatant competitor to Twitter. So much so, Twitter has threatened Meta with legal action after accusing it of using former employees and trade secrets to build the Threads. Meanwhile, those planning to use Threads to closely keep tabs on Musk's jet will have to keep an eye on Elonjet's profile — Threads bafflingly doesn't yet have a chronological feed of posts.

That said, Elonjet didn't quite escape the wrath of seemingly zealous Threads moderators. According to Engadget alum Saqib Shah, Meta removed the account from the app "in error" but later restored it.

So, you signed up for a Threads account, because you wanted to see what the fuss was about with Meta's Twitter rival. If you decide that the new social network isn't for you or if you want to start fresh, deleting your Threads profile may not be the way to go — as The Verge notes, doing so will also erase your entire Instagram account. When you open a Threads account, you can use your Instagram credentials to sign up if you want to bring over your profile and your circles from the photo-sharing app. But by doing so, your accounts on both platforms become inextricably linked. 

In a post on Threads, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said Meta is aware of the issue and is currently looking for a way to allow you to delete your Threads account separately. The company is also working on features that are still missing from the app, including the following tab, hashtags, fediverse support and messaging. For now, you can deactivate your Threads account to hide your profile and content. You can also set your profile to private or simply just delete individual threads. To note, you can also sign up for a Threads account with an email or a phone number not linked to your Instagram account, so you can keep the two platforms completely separate. 

Meta couldn't have launched Threads at a better time. Twitter recently made changes that frustrated even the most avid users. It first prevented people who aren't logged in from seeing tweets — though it quietly backtracked on requiring users to log in — and then put a strict cap on how many posts users can see per day. Around 10 million users signed up for a Threads account within its first seven hours, and in the first morning after it became available, the app already had 30 million users. Shortly after Threads launched, Twitter threatened to sue Meta, accusing it of poaching former employees and misappropriating trade secrets and intellectual property. In a response to a tweet about the potential lawsuit, Elon Musk replied: "Competition is fine, cheating is not."

Meta's Twitter rival Threads just went live and has already exceeded 10 million signups within the first seven hours, according to (a Thread by) CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The app is now available globally (except in Europe), with the rapid signup pace showing Meta's enormous ability to scale up compared to other Twitter rivals like Bluesky — which still requires invite codes. 

To, er, mark the occasion, Zuckerberg tweeted for the first time in over a decade with the classic Spider-Man standoff picture (showing that unlike Elon Musk, he actually knows how memes work). "10 million signups in seven hours," he added on Threads. 

With Threads, Meta is taking on Twitter and alternatives like Mastodon. It's under the purview of Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who is planning to make Threads compatible with ActivityPub. That's the source protocol that powers Mastodon and other decentralized services sometimes collectively referred to as the “Fediverse.”

Threads is strongly tied to Instagram and built on the same platform, giving Meta an effective way to advertise it. Any users who pre-ordered the app on iOS received a push notification when Threads went live, another move that no doubt boosted signups. 

The site is not without early teething issues, though. The biggest complaint is the lack of a chronological, following-only feed, with users stuck with whatever the Threads algorithm decides to push their way. ("95 percent of the posts I see are completely irrelevant to me," complained one user). It also lacks post editing (which Facebook and Instagram both have), hashtags, account switching and more. 

Mosseri has addressed all those issues, posting on Threads that a following-only feature is "on the list." He said the same about post editing and account switching, and added that hashtags will be tappable "in time." 

Engadget

Another key problem for many users is the lack of a web version of Threads. Much like Instagram was for a long time, Threads is read-only on browsers, with posting limited to the iOS and Android apps (Mosseri has yet to address this). Finally, the design of Threads seems to be a love it or hate it affair, with some users finding the layout less intuitive than Twitter.

Verification remains another key talking point. Elon Musk famously changed Twitter's system so that only Twitter Blue subscribers would receive the blue check mark (or very notable public figures and news sites). That made the experience less enjoyable for many users, as it became difficult to tell who was an official athlete, celebrity, journalist, etc. 

So far, only users verified on Instagram (and not Facebook) have received the blue badge on Threads. While Instagram verification is notoriously more difficult to get, it's largely held by influencers and creators. But Threads is positioned as a discussion site and will likely be focused on news (if it's to compete with Twitter), so it might make sense to allow Facebook verified users to also be verified on Threads — or create an all-new verification system.

In any case, it's still early days for Threads and the app will no doubt change substantially in the near future. It's clear that users have strong opinions — whether Meta listens to them or not will be an interesting story over the next few months.  

Several days after Twitter stopped showing tweets to logged-out users, that basic functionality seems to be returning. Several Engadget editors are once again able to see individual tweets without being logged into their accounts. Profiles still seem to be busted for those who aren’t signed in, however. For instance, I’m able to see a user’s bio, but their feed of tweets isn’t showing up. Meanwhile, tweet previews are working in iMessage again for some folks.

Making tweets inaccessible to logged-out users was a “temporary emergency measure,” according to Twitter owner Elon Musk. “We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users,” he wrote.

The company gave a similar explanation as to why it temporarily put limits on the number of tweets each user is able to read per day. On Tuesday, it said it made that move, which busted various Twitter apps, to “detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors that are harming the platform,” such as those who are scraping data to train artificial intelligence models. Twitter added that the rate limits were affecting a small percentage of users at that point.

Twitter no longer has a communications department that can be reached for comment. Still, public tweets are once again becoming available for anyone to view just as Meta starts rolling out its Twitter competitor, which is called Threads. That service is expected to go live in several markets on Thursday, but not in the European Union.

Meta's rival to Twitter called Threads, an Instagram app is set to launch tomorrow in the US and UK, but it may not come to the rest of Europe anytime soon. A Meta spokesperson told Ireland's Data Protection Commission that the service will not be rolled in the EU "at this point," Independent.ie has reported. 

Threads may not be launching in much of Europe due to more stringent data privacy requirements. The DPC is apparently not blocking the service — instead, it's Meta that has "not yet prepared the service for a European launch outside the UK, which is not fully governed by GDPR or EU privacy rules," according to the report.

The EU just hit Meta with a ruling that it must obtain consent from users before delivering personalized ads in the region. Prior to that, the company was hit with a €390 million EU fine (about $425 million) for not receiving consent before serving up such ads. 

On top of that, in 2021, the DPC fined WhatsApp €225 million ($266.8 million at the time) or not providing enough detail on how it shares EU users' data with Facebook. That could pose a problem for Threads in its current state, as it automatically imports data from Instagram, including advertising and behavior information, according to the policy listed on its iOS App Store page. 

Threads is arriving amidst issues with Twitter like "rate limits" on tweets and degraded service for the power-user app Tweetdeck. Many of Twitter's active users have been seeking an alternative with apps like Bluesky and Mastodon, but some see Threads as the most viable option due to Meta's scale. That's despite any reservations they may have about CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's track record on privacy and other issues.