Sponsored by RockWater

AI isn’t the future of social content. It’s already happening.

Have you been on Pinterest lately? Mostly AI.

Same for my Facebook feed.

And how long do you go through the TikTok FYP before you hear that obvious ‘Eleven Labs’ canned AI voice?

We all know AI is everywhere, but how are the platforms addressing this?

I’ll break it down for you.

Also in this edition:

• Building a Relationship With Your Audience

• Grok Goes Full Hitler

• The AI Marco Rubio Voice Scam

• FanFix hits $200m in Payouts

• Job ops from TikTok, Wasserman, and IPSY.

• …and a dank creator economy meme by yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad AI?

Let’s check in with the major social media platforms and their AI policy, shall we?

YouTube:

• Despite YouTube’s original announcement that ‘repetitious content’ would no longer be monetized on July 15, YouTube clarified that it was not a shot at AI. But changing that term to ‘unoriginal content’ feels like even more of a shot at AI, so who knows?

• YouTube requires any realistic AI-generated content to be tagged as AI upon upload or the content may be subject to demonetization or removal.

• YouTube allows users to issue a privacy request to remove any AI content that is impersonating their face or voice.

• YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced at Cannes Lions that Veo 3, their insane text-to-video/audio model, will be available to create end-to-end YouTube Shorts as soon as this summer. Expect a whole lot more AI Shorts!

Meta:

• Meta attached ‘Made with AI’ badges to any content heavily using AI on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads. Despite this policy, I’ve seldom seen this enforced with AI content.

• AI content will not be removed unless it violates other community rules like violence or hate speech.

• Meta claims to remove or downgrade deepfakes but, again, I see those often in my feed.

• Mark Zuckerberg is spending big bucks to build a top-shelf AI team with rumors of 9-figure employee packages. Add that to his very weird riff on Meta AI providing friends to people who have not hit their requisite nine friends and it’s clear AI will be a major part of Facebook’s future.

X:

• X is now owned by xAI, so I think this one is pretty clear.

• One of the biggest ‘games’ on X is fact-checking through Grok, which, after Grok’s intense evil turn last week (more below) makes it clear X is going hard on completely unhinged AI initiatives.

TikTok:

• TikTok also requires clear labelling on any content heavily produced with AI through a built-in toggle or hashtags.

• TikTok also has some of the most aggressive policies on misleading or exploitative AI content.

• This being said, TikTok also has full end-to-end AI creation tools not just through TikTok, but through their sister editing app CapCut, including full AI captions, editing, and even creating videos from stills.

Pinterest:

• Also says AI content must be labelled, but this appears to be seldom followed.

• There is a setting to “See fewer AI Pins,” but that is not the default and unlikely to be widely known.

• The platform uses generative AI for ad enhacements.

• Users’ pins default to having their Pins used to train AI, but can opt out.

So where does this leave us?

For now, every platform is learning to love AI with very few guardrails. And I have a feeling as long as users continue watching AI content at the same rate as non-AI content, that won’t change.

SPONSORED BY ROCKWATER

Have you thought about selling your creator business?

RockWater advises owners in the creator economy on the sale of their business. We have the largest buyer network, and negotiate the best deals possible for our clients. We’re proud to be the industry’s top M&A advisor.

We recently advised Lionize, an influencer marketing platform, on their sale to gen.video. We’ve also advised Long Haul Mgmt (sold to Wasserman), Bottle Rocket Mgmt (sold to Night), Bounty (sold to gen.video), and have many more deals yet to be announced.

If you want a POV on your company’s valuation and readiness for a sale, reach out to to [email protected] to setup an intro call.

GROW 1%:

Phil Ranta’s weekly social media growth newsletter with one actionable tip to grow.

This week’s ‘Grow 1%’ is titled It's a Relationship Business and discusses how to build a relationship with your audience.

Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the entire edition in the link above:

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend of mine who works in product manufacturing, and it struck me when he said of his industry, "It's all a relationship business."

I also hear that refrain from my Hollywood friends.

And sales.

And SaaS.

And pretty much everything.

And it's certainly true in the creator economy. This is a team sport, and those who don't realize that miss out on many great deals that are shared via text, email, and, yes, LinkedIn DMs.

Those who fancy themselves 'sharks' suffer the same fate: doomed to swim alone.

But when you're a creator, and your content creates a 'one-to-many' relationship, is it still a 'relationship business '?

Hate to break it to you sharks, but the answer is 'yes'.

The obvious: collabs are a great way to grow, getting other social media accounts to engage with your content is useful, and you learn a lot from breaking bread with other creators.

But the relationship to your audience itself needs to be considered and cultivated.

Continue reading here.

FAME & FORTUNE:

X’s AI chatbot Grok went wild last week, calling itself MechaHitler, planning a hit, playing out sexual fantasies about outgoing CEO Linda Yaccarino, and saying it was due to an update from the one and only Elon Musk. Even weirder? Grok apologized last weekend. Yes…an AI chatbot apologized…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had scammers clone his voice, which were then used to make AI calls to high profile political figures. Reminder: the elderly are already getting scammed to the tune of billions per year without the caller sounding like their favorite politician.

GoFundMe, the popular crowdfunding site, has launched GoFundMe for Creators as a way for creators to learn how to raise money for their projects.

FanFix Co-CEO Dylan Harrari announced creators have now made over $200m on the platform. Bravo to all of the creators building a stronger relationship directly with their fans!

INDUSTRY HIRING:

TikTok needs a Creator Manager, Top Creators. Must have Khabe Lame on speed dial.

Wasserman is looking for a Growth Manager, Creators who knows the best place to buy followers (kidding of course…but also…you know…)

IPSY wants a Creator Partnerships Lead to help YouTubers match a foundation to their skintone.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.