July 16, 2025 
Share This PostHere’s your July round-up of essential social media and online safety updates. This month, we’re tracking user concerns around Meta’s moderation rollbacks, and new features from LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram. Plus, don’t miss this month’s free tools, including our new AI and moderation resource hub and a smart SEO caption generator to help your content get found.
🌱Community Building & Engagement
Threads turns two and continues to gain momentum
The platform is now up to 350 million active users, and its growth continues to accelerate.
Bluesky engagement declining
These Bluesky post count and author stats graphs show a slow but steady dip.
How to stop the “AI voice” from taking over your charity’s comms
Gabriella Poznansky at DSC explores the ethical, environmental, and practical concerns around using AI in charity communications, urging organisations to think critically and use these tools with care.
How to boost your TikTok engagement rate
Tips to help you drive more meaningful interactions.
🔐 Trust & Safety
Harmful content on Meta’s platforms in the wake of rollbacks, according to users
A new survey of 7,000 active users found evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased self-censorship.
Large language models are a bad replacement for human therapy, a new Stanford University study says
It argues that chatbots like ChatGPT should not replace therapists because of their dangerous tendencies to express stigma, encourage delusions and respond inappropriately in critical moments.
UK Survey reports 8% increase in the number of 9-17 year olds that have experienced harm in the last year
The latest Internet Matters Pulse findings show that children continue to face a wide range of harms online. These include exposure to violent content, bullying and unwanted contact from strangers.
🔧 Platform Updates
Meta Adds copyright check to the Reels Composer on Facebook
Creators are now automatically alerted if their video content violates music rights—before hitting publish.
X bans hashtags in promoted posts
Advertisers on X can no longer use hashtags in paid posts.
New YouTube analytics tools now available
New audience segments, leaderboard for top fans, “most relevant” comment filter and more announced.
LinkedIn adding video covers to articles and newsletters
LinkedIn’s rolling out a new option to make your articles stand out in-stream, in line with its broader push on video content.
YouTube increasing minimum age for live streaming
Creators will need to be 16 or older to be able to live stream on YouTube.
TikTok looks to gamify livestream engagement with Fan Clubs
Fan Clubs allow LIVE creators to connect directly with eligible fans, providing a way for fans to support LIVE creators’ popularity on TikTok.
Instagram expands Google access to public posts to more regions
Contrary to much of the recent coverage of this update, this isn’t actually a major shift as most public IG posts have been indexed by Google for some time.
🎁 Free Resources
New AI and Moderation Resource Hub
What’s changing, and why it matters. Check out this new home for all the latest and most important updates on AI and social media moderation.
Tech harms and injustices library
A helpful resource for charities in need of up-to-date evidence of where technology creates injustice, for funding applications, research with communities, or future content.
SEO Caption Generator for Social Media
With consumers now treating social networks a lot like search engines, it’s time to start making social media content easier for users to find on social media.
As always, we’ll continue monitoring platform, policy, and user behaviour changes, and what that means for those of us working on the front lines of digital communities. If you’re looking for a trusted partner in moderation, safeguarding, or strategic online community support, get in touch with our team.
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