TikTok's new "adult-only" content, post scheduling on Instagram, and new features to protect users on Instagram
A weekly recap of major marketing news you may have missed
Hi there!
Here is your weekly edition of “5 Minutes of Marketing,” a newsletter delivering the latest marketing, business, and technology news.
First of all, let me wish a Happy Diwali to my Hindu, Sikh, and Jain readers from around the world who are celebrating the Festival of Lights this week. 🪔🎆
The three main stories from Week 42 are TikTok is to introduce “adult-only” content, Instagram is finally testing an in-app post-scheduling tool, and it has also announced some new additional measures to fight user abuse.
So, grab a cup of coffee ☕️ and let’s go!
😱 TikTok to introduce “adult-only” livestreams
In the coming weeks, TikTok will allow its content to be labeled as “adult-only,” which means that content creators will be able to restrict their live streaming to suit their audience better. No worries, TikTok won’t compete with OnlyFans, and “adult-only” doesn’t mean actual adult content. 😉
In fact, as TikTok explains it, “Perhaps a comedy routine is better suited for people over age 18. Or, a host may plan to talk about a difficult life experience, and they would feel more comfortable knowing the conversation is limited to adults. We want our community to make the most of the opportunities LIVE can bring without compromising on safety.”
Nevertheless, from 23 November, the minimum age for live streaming will increase from 16 to 18 on TikTok. Currently, some features, such as Direct Messaging or monetization, aren’t available to app users under 16 or 18, respectively. ⛔️
TikTok is justifying this as a way to improve the safety of its community and give adult content creators more freedom and opportunities to create content that resonates better with their audience.
How significant is this change?
In my opinion, this is only an attempt to showcase the measures taken to safeguard the minors who use the app. 👀 However, in reality, many under-18-year-olds input fake birthdays to access full features available on TikTok.
Without implementing proper age verification, such as through live video verification, there is little TikTok can do to prevent the “adult content” from reaching crowds below 18. 🤷🏻
The TikTok policies for the content that can be shared on the platform will remain the same; even with the “adult only” label, content creators will require to publish content that doesn’t go against community guidelines. For example, using the word “sex” in the content will still lead to disciplinary action.
🙌🏼 Instagram is testing an in-app post-scheduling tool
Finally! 🥳 Instagram creators have been relying on third-party tools to plan and schedule their posts for way too long. It seems that Instagram started testing an in-app tool that will allow scheduling for posts and reels. 💯
Last week, there were users tweeting screenshots of advanced posting settings that allow Instagram in-app scheduling. It was also highlighted that users could see scheduled posts through the “Scheduled Content” section under the hamburger menu. The section also allows rescheduling of the content if required.
There were reports that Instagram had been working on a scheduling tool earlier this year. However, now it seems that a bigger pool of users across the globe has the opportunity to test this new feature. 👏🏼
Why is this good news?
1️⃣ For many years, scheduling Instagram posts and reels has been tedious. In 2018, the company started allowing third-party apps (e.g., Hootsuite) to connect through API and allow post-scheduling.
2️⃣ Later, in 2020, Instagram scheduling became available through Facebook’s Creator Studio; however, it has still been tedious for those users who don’t want to use third-party tools or Facebook to plan their Instagram posts.
👍🏼 Therefore, this new feature will, in fact, make a lot of Instagram content creators extremely happy as it will reduce the burden of content scheduling and will help to save costs.
Instagram is taking steps to protect its users from abuse
Social media has become notorious for cyberbullying, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism, and other types of attacks on individuals. While the community guidelines don’t allow such abuse ⛔️, often it isn’t detected in time by the bots guarding social media platforms against such occurrences.
Instagram has announced the introduction of updates to the Hidden Words feature on the app. Currently, users can enable Hidden Words to remove damaging content from message requests and comments automatically. 🤬
In the future, it is said, the users will have the opportunity to add additional words, emojis, and phrases to their personal Hidden Words lists to filter and hide comments and messages more effectively.
On top of that, now, when users block someone, they will also have the option to block additional accounts associated with the profile. It will make stalking to connect again more difficult. 👍🏼
Why is this important?
Indeed, social media can be a toxic and harmful place. Just a couple of weeks ago, Kanye West was suspended from Instagram and Twitter for posting racist and antisemitic slurs. 😡
Social media platforms must take more proactive roles in addressing abuse and cyberbullying, and as many initiatives as possible are welcome. However, are these platforms fast enough to react? 🤔
Facebook, for instance, is known to store tons of posts that are abusive to various ethnic groups, minorities, or the LGBTQI+ community, but they seem to justify such content as free speech. Here is the question, then: will social media platforms treat abusive comments and DMs as freedom of speech as well and have a ton of exceptions for what gets removed and what doesn’t?
I hope not. 🙅🏻♂️
Therefore, giving actual users the liberty of choosing the words, emojis, and phrases that are offensive to them is a good start. It makes social media users less dependent on the mercy of social media bots and reviewers.
Other interesting stories worth checking out:
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