New social media features and updates to know this week

AI reigns supreme on social media this week. Whether it’s implementing new advertising tools that put AI front and center or better identifying and combatting misleading information connected to elections, we’ve got tons of news that focuses on the wave of artificial intelligence that’s changing the game.

Let’s get into it.

X

AI continues to infiltrate all aspects of social media advertising. Today, the latest use case is from X, who announced that soon, advertisers will be able to use plain language and an AI assist to find custom audiences on the platform in just seconds.

👀 Coming soon: AI Audiences

Briefly describe the target audience for your ads and our AI systems will generate a pool of the most relevant X users to target in seconds. pic.twitter.com/5XUWDHDQ0h

— Business (@XBusiness) May 9, 2024

Meta

Meta is also beefing up its AI use in advertising. New image generation features include allowing AI-generated image variants, including text overlay capabilities, image expansion that will fit images to various format needs, and text generation for headlines. These features will all be brought together in the Ads Manager under the Advantage+ banner.

Meta is also expanding tests surrounding its Meta Verified for small businesses, including new subscription tiers and features.

TikTok

In even more AI news, TikTok is increasing its labeling of AI-generated content. Some of this work is done automatically when content is uploaded from certain platforms. This is accomplished through the use of Content Credentials, which TikTok says “attach metadata to content, which we can use to instantly recognize and label AIGC.” TikTok will also soon implement these Content Credentials on content created with TikTok, which will remain with the content even after download and can be used to identify the content elsewhere.

Threads

Threads is rolling out the ability to see how many views a post has gotten. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the new feature was part of a push to give “creators some of the data they’ve been asking for.” Still, this data is notoriously squishy and hard to tell if the content was actually seen or just scrolled past. But data is data.

Threads is also deepening its connection to Instagram by making it easier to cross-post photo content. TechCrunch reported that Instagram is testing the ability to automatically post all photo posts to Threads with an opt-in toggle. Reels content will not automatically cross-post, and hashtags will be converted to plain text. TechCrunch notes that with Instagram’s pivot to video, Threads could become a new platform for sharing photography.

YouTube

With one month to go for the European Union Parliamentary elections, YouTube is announcing new info boxes and safety measures. Some of these will surely also be in use in the U.S. elections come November. Here’s some of what they’re implementing:

• Info boxes on how to register and vote.
• Helping surface information from candidates’ official YouTube channels in results to searches.
• Increased use of both human moderators at AI to remove harmful content related to elections.
• Emphasizing existing policies, such as required AI labeling and referrals of harmful content to law enforcement.

While none of these are groundbreaking, every bit helps in the fight against election-related misinformation.

Reddit

Reddit has announced new policies governing how private companies can use user data. Generally, these include common-sense items like not harassing users, not allowing content to be used for facial recognition purposes and not using adult content. Perhaps most notable for our purposes is the provision that “Partners are not allowed to use content to identify individuals or their personal information, including for ad targeting purposes.”

Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.