A Connecticut-based Twitch streamer has filed a class-action lawsuit against the platform over its recent announcement that creators’ content will automatically be used to train Amazon‘s AI products.

In his suit, Warren Pandiscia argues that “[b]ecause Amazon AI products are commercialized, Amazon had an overwhelming incentive to acquire training data on an unprecedented scale. Rather than negotiate for lawful licenses or seek permission, defendants accessed the Twitch streams and videos to utilize them as a massive dataset necessary to fuel Amazon’s AI products.”

Pandiscia’s claim stems from Twitch’s Aug. 12 announcement that it will opt every single user’s account into consent for Amazon to use their streams, chat comments, etc, to feed AI models. (Not how consent works, btw.) Users who do not actually consent have to go in and opt out of the setting.

Twitch decided to make the setting opt-out instead of opt-in because, as CPO Mike Minton said in a “jaw-dropping” admission, “If it was opt-in, nobody would opt in.”

Despite knowing that, and despite the immense backlash to the policy and Minton’s comments, Twitch has kept the auto-opt-in, and will continue to scrape users’ content unless they opt out.

Pandiscia says this opt-out system isn’t good enough. “By design, defendants never obtain—and their systems are incapable of obtaining—the consent of all parties to the communications they capture,” his suit claims.

But his class-action also addresses a widespread fear among streamers: that Twitch just now added an opt-out to something it’s been doing for years–and even if creators opt out, they’ve already had their work stolen.

Pandiscia alleges Twitch and Amazon have been scraping creators’–and viewers’–content as far back as 2024, without notifying them. That allegation finds ground, considering that in 2024, Minton said Amazon was using content from Twitch “in a prototyping, not in any kind of production scale, capacity.”

Neither company has commented on this accusation. During the aforementioned recent livestream, Minton gave a vague answer, telling viewers, “Twitch has not been training models. I can’t speak to what Amazon is training or not training as it relates to any specific usage of content.”

“Content creators such as plaintiff and the class members will never be able to claw back the intellectual property unlawfully copied and used by defendants to train Amazon’s generative AI,” Pandiscia’s suit says.

He claims breach of implied contract, unjust enrichment, breach of express contract, and unfair business practices, and is asking the court to award injunctive relief plus damages, restitution, and disgorgement of profits.

However this suit shakes out, it could end up being a landmark case with regard to major tech-owned digital platforms and creators’ content. Twitch is not the only platform that has scraped or otherwise interfered with creators’ content for its AI-slop-loving parent company, but gen AI is so new that we don’t have precedents yet to address the posting on a UGC platform → AI scrape → copyright law protections? pipeline. This could help set a precedent.

Pandiscia’s complaint was filed Aug. 20 in the Northern District of California.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

As the tug-of-war between YouTube and Netflix intensifies, the former company is expanding a product that makes it look more like the latter. YouTube’s Stations first rolled out with music-focused channels at Coachella, but a recent update will bring that format to other content categories.

Stations are, to put it simply, YouTube’s take on the TV channel. They are always-on streaming hubs that cater to fans within particular content niches. Consumers who enjoy free, ad-supported television (FAST) on platforms like Roku or Samsung TV Plus can now enjoy a similar experience on YouTube.

YouTube’s initial Stations experiment took place at Coachella. For more than a decade, the Indio, California-set festival has been broadcast on YouTube, and for the 2026 edition of the event, music fans could hone in on specific artists through Stations that provided 24/7 coverage.

Evidently, YouTube liked the results of that test, because Stations are now coming to a host of content categories. According to a YouTube Help thread, “formats like creator content, media channels, podcasts, and select new music artists” will be covered in the Stations expansion.

“Stations let you watch collections of videos from your favorite creators as an always-on, lean-back viewing experience. You can watch and engage in real-time with other fans in live chat, making it feel like a shared viewing room,” reads the post. “While we started this pilot with a small group of music artists, you’ll now start seeing Stations for a wide variety of new types of content.”

There are several reasons why Stations make sense for YouTube. Its creators are already launching FAST channels, so why not give them the tools to do that on YouTube? FAST and ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) platforms are also trending in the right direction, with Tubi emerging as one of the biggest success stories. FAST is a growing space where YouTube would like a bigger foothold.

Then there’s the Netflix of it all. The subscription-based streamer is buying up so much creator content that YouTube has resorted to paying its top stars to keep them from doing business with its rival. To give those creators a Netflix-like experience on YouTube, the Google-affiliated platform has experimented with channel redesigns, serialized playlists, and Stations.

For now, Stations are available for a “limited number” of creators, but viewers can watch them in almost any region where YouTube is available. There are only three exceptions to that rule: Portugal, Switzerland, and Turkiye. If you reside anywhere else, go ahead and live life in the FAST lane.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

Lucan Pevidor has spent a second straight week leading the Global Sub Top 50. The Brazilian creator is making his mark across all of YouTube’s numerical axes. After adding two million weekly subscribers, he now has 32 million subs to go along with his 17 billion lifetime views (and counting).

Most of the channels in the Global Sub Top 50 are run by individual creators like Lucan Pevidor. There are a few entrants, however, that are tied to brands. Let’s figure out how those standouts are pulling it off:

YouTube Shorts can be a brand’s best friend (some creativity required)

The top nine channels in this week’s Global Sub Top 50 all belong to individual creators or couples. You have to get to the tenth spot, occupied by Japan’s Gazoo Racing, before a brand enters the chat.

It’s not so easy for a brand to build a strong following through YouTube Shorts. Doing so typically requires marketers to produce the short, universal, sometimes nonsensical fare that drives so much short-form traffic on YouTube. For companies that prefer polished content, the switch can be tricky to pull off.

Some brands, however, have found clever ways to connect with the Shorts audiences, and they’re pulling off that feat without sacrificing polish in their creative. India’s Titan Watches is a good example of what I’m talking about. The Bengaluru-based manufacturer of timepieces sees India’s YouTube community as a golden opportunity, and it capitalized on that chance by referencing the family vlogs that perform so well on the South Asian side of YouTube Shorts.

A campaign based around mothers who don’t get enough sleep — and children who don’t know how much their moms sleep — gave Titan Watches a chance to promote its biometric tracking products. That popular video helped the brand reach 42nd place in the Global Sub Top 50 by adding 224,000 weekly subscribers.

In a different context, Titan Watches might not center its ads around mothers and their children. YouTube Shorts, however, dictates a trend-inspired approach, and the few brands represented in the Global Sub Top 50 understand the value of that strategy.

Pokémon Kids TV, for example, has turned a beloved video game franchise into a YouTube success story by turning its pocket monsters into the stars of sing-alongs and other CoComelon-style, long-form uploads. That’s how the official Pokémon channel reached 24th place in the Global Sub Top 50.

In the realm of finance, the wisest brands on Shorts keep it trendy, even if the nature of their products requires them to appeal to adults over kids. The National Bank of Egypt stressed the value of data security as its vertically oriented ads powered it to a rare appearance in the Global Sub Top 50.

Data via Gospel Stats

As ad products continue to pour into the Shorts environment, there will be more opportunities for canny brands to reach millions of subscribers through their paid media. Pokémon Kids TV, for example, now commands a massive audience of 44 million YouTube subscribers.

The brands that operate most efficiently in that space will be the ones who avoid static, passé campaigns. YouTube Shorts viewers are always looking for the newest whot trends, and both brands and creators are capable of delivering that “next big thing.”

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 11
• Mexico: 8
• United States: 6
• Brazil: 4
• Japan, The Philippines, Russia, and South Korea: 2
• Australia, Argentina, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Panama, Spain, and Turikye: 1

This week, 41 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it.   Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

Anaya Kandhal has repeated as the #1 channel in the Global Top 50. The Indian kidfluencer is closing in on 75 million subscribers, and after collecting 958.8 million weekly views, she has brought her lifetime YouTube total above 116 billion. Not bad for a five-year-old.

Compared to little Anaya, there are plenty of grown-ups populating the Global Top 50 as well. Channels that broke into the ranking at the start of the Shorts era are still going strong, and the most resilient chart-toppers find ways to stay adaptable.

Yesterday’s sigma girls are today’s Kpop Demon Hunters

Though us social media long-timers may find it hard to believe, YouTube Shorts is now nearly six years old. The format that once brought a new dimension to YouTube has become a full-fledged ecosystem filled with ads, algorithmic recommendations, and more views than one person could conceivably count in a thousand lifetimes.

We’ve published the Global Top 50 weekly for Shorts’ entire existence, and the #1 channel in the chart has typically been a short-form superstar — though there has been plenty of change at the top. After all, current #1 Anaya Kandhal wasn’t even born yet when YouTube started testing Shorts.

As newcomers have taken our charts to a billion weekly views and beyond, where does that leave the channels that previously dominated the Top 50? Are they staying relevant, or fading into the background?

As we consider that question, CuRe provides a curious case study. When we first covered the Korean channel nearly three years ago, it was at the forefront of the “sigma girl” trend. One of its two protagonists was a confident, cocksure woman who was less type-A than an alpha but more proactive than a beta. That made her part of a Gen Alpha trend that rose to prominence around 2023.

Gen Alpha tastes, however, are evolving quickly, requiring creators and marketers to be vigilant if they want to keep reaching young people on social media. Where does that leave a channel like CuRe? How does a hub once buoyed by sigma girl magic stay relevant in the Top 50?

CuRe, like the most effective Gen Alpha whisperers, is paying attention to short-form viewership and adapting its videos to match. Couple content is currently huge, and CuRe is putting its own deadpan spin on that idea. And with food ragebait on the rise, CuRe is buying in.

The Korean channel’s evolving strategy is paying off. CuRe got 360.7 million weekly views during the third full week of August. That was enough traffic to reach 43rd place in the Global Top 50.

South Korea’s other entrant in the Global Top 50 is KIMPRO, a channel that has long spread itself across the biggest short-form trends on the internet. With that broad approach, KIMPRO became the self-proclaimed “#1 Shorts channel in the world.”

As we approach the end of August, KIMPRO wants to keep that title. That means — you guessed it — a lot more Rumi representation in the channel’s videos. KPop Demon Hunters is still big, and so is KIMPRO, which manages to get more than 500 million weekly views most of the time.

Data via Gospel Stats

As YouTube Shorts continues to grow up, channels like KIMPRO and CuRe will find it harder to deliver such impressive chart performances week after week. There are, after all, many more five-year-olds in countries like India that will haul in billions of views at the time.

Amid that competitive landscape, only the creators who pay attention to the trends will be able to maintain Top 50 representation. Gen Alpha is a lot more than skibidis and sigmas these days, and both CuRe and KIMPRO have figured that out. Where will today’s youngsters take us next?

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 21
• United States: 7
• Indonesia: 5
• Canada: 3
• Japan and South Korea: 2
• Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China, Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam: 1

This week, 39 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it.   Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Welcome to our rundown of the most-watched branded YouTube videos of the week.

We’re publishing this snippet of a larger Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report in order to analyze sponsorship trends in the creator economy. Any video launched in tandem with an official brand partner is eligible for the ranking.

And – as the name up above would imply – all the data comes from Gospel Stats. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here. You can also download our YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape Report here.

In this week’s Gospel Stats Brand Report, we have something unique: For the first time, the creators of every single top-performing video are newcomers to our top 5 list.

And, with the exception of Crunchyroll, all the sponsoring brands are new too.

We did see a few of the usual top creators come in a little later on this week’s list. WhistlinDiesel is in at #9, Dr Insanity at #11, and Veritasium at #13, for example. But the top slots went strictly to Shorts from brand-new dynamic duos.

Curious…

Check it all out below:

#1 Too far? #story #Crunchyrollpartner #ad #anime
Channel: ANC3
Brand: Crunchyroll
Views: 29,130,708

As we mentioned above, Crunchyroll is the only brand this week who’s previously appeared in our top 5. The anime streaming service has popped up a few times, often to promote special deals around subscriptions, and usually in partnership with anime niche content creators.

This clip does, in fact, come from passionate anime creators. AnimeNightClub3, aka brothers Ojthedj, Osa, and Omo, are known for their otaku culture sketches–and for their Crunchyroll sponsorship, they spun their usual humor into a skit about how people can watch Crunchyroll anywhere, on any device…including on the great porcelain throne.

What’s cool is that ANC3 has perhaps the smallest number of subscribers we’ve seen for a top 5 creator: 17.8K. But they’re #1 this week with a well-polished video and are constantly pumping out Shorts, so we’re curious what their count will look like a couple months from now. Check back in!

#2 Math challenge ft our fav summer sweet treat @trufruofficial #trufrupartner #numberchallenge
Channel: Thesisterz
Brand: Trü Frü
Views: 12,830,602

What a coincidence: Following ANC3’s trio of brothers, we have sister trio Bendy, Needa, and MOONA, aka Thesisterz, in spot #2 with a promo for fruit snack brand Trü Frü. Like many sponsored Shorts, there’s no official product spot in this one; the sisters simply have a bag of Trü Frü in front of them while they’re playing a quick-on-your-feet math game.

12 million views later, they are the most-viewed video for Trü Frü this week. But not the only one! The snack brand also sponsored #22, #72, #865 (from Thesisterz too), and #2224 this week.

#3 i made a friend today! ? #shorts
Channel: Roya Destroyaa
Brand: Shein
Views: 10,884,166

So apparently 10 million people watched two grown women scream and cry like toddlers. That’s the entirety of this Shein-sponsored video, and also the entirety of Roya Destroyaa‘s channel, which has 693K subscribers.

There’s a world of difference between this Shein video and, say, video #1080, an elegant try-on montage from Clara Afua. But Roya Destroyaa’s is at #3 across all of YouTube this week, which says…something…about viewer taste. Shein is clearly trying to spread its reach and appeal to different levels of audiences in different niches.

#4 YOU are secretly being recorded?
Channel: Electracy
Brand: Medal.tv
Views: 9,166,203

With millions of streamers and content creators actively making videos in top games every day, it’s becoming more and more likely that if you play a well-known title, you’ll encounter one in the wild, and might end up on their Twitch stream or in their YouTube video.

Medal.tv says it can tell you when that happens–and direct you to the exact content where you appear. Robloxer Electracy is the creator showing off these capabilities in a 29-second clip. We see the appeal here: your average player can see if they’ve popped up in a beloved creator’s content, and creators can get shots of themselves from other people’s perspectives.

This is the first time we’ve seen Medal.tv pop up in the top 5, but it’s clearly familiar with YouTube. It sponsored eight videos this week, and with that kind of commitment, we expect to see it appearing in future weeks, too.

BONUS #575 HOUSE OF THE DRAGON S3E06 BREAKDOWN: Every Detail You Missed!
Channel: New Rockstars
Brand: BetterHelp
Views: 360,384

BetterHelp has had its controversies, but still remains one of YouTube’s most prolific creator sponsors. It paid for 40 videos this week alone–one of which is the above upload dissecting the latest House of the Dragon episode.

The much-talked-about prequel to George R.R. Martin‘s original epic, Game of Thrones, HOTD is full of characters who could probably use a little teletherapy themselves. Unfortunately for them, they live in Westeros, where the only therapy available is whacking the nearest tree with your sword.

We’ll see Season 3 of HOTD wrap up soon. By the time Season 4 rolls around, the Paramount x Warner Bros. Discovery merger might be closed, and fans could end up watching episodes on a new, hybrid streaming service…

…and there’s a lot more data where that came from. If you like our Weekly Top 5, you’ll love everything else Gospel has to offer. Start with our newly released YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape Report, wfrom hich you can download right here.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Dhar Mann Studios has struck a content deal with another major entertainment entity.

This time, it’s possibly the biggest entertainment entity of all: Disney.

Their agreement will have Mann, the so-called “moral philosopher of YouTube,” produce 20 original episodes of original content for Disney. Deadline reports the episodes will be aimed at kids, teens, tweens, and families.

Other than that, we don’t have many details. Will these episodes be short-form or long-form? Vertical or horizontal? Will they air solely on Disney+, or will Disney try airing them on its flagship TV channel? (Not likely, but that’s OK: Mann already has a TV presence, thanks to snagging Samsung TV Plus’s first-ever original content deal in July 2025, agreeing to make 13 original episodes for his own FAST channel.)

There’s precedent for both long- and short-form (Disney introduced a TikTok-esque feed, Verts, to Disney+ this past March), as well as vertical and horizontal (another new addition: the Creator Collection, a catalog of creator-led horizontal content that goes out across Disney+ and Hulu).

On Dhar Mann Studios’ 28 million-subscriber YouTube channel, long-form is clearly king, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Disney wants him to make bite-sized narratives as a quick watch between Marvel movies or episodes of Bluey.

“For me, this is so much bigger than a content deal,” Mann said in a statement. “I grew up with Disney stories. Now I get to experience that same magic through the eyes of my own family, and the idea that we now have the opportunity to create stories for Disney for the next generation is incredibly meaningful to me.”

“What’s fun about this partnership is that is two Burbank companies coming together, from very different eras of media, both built around a similar ideas of surprising and delighting families,” Sean Atkins, Dhar Mann Studios’ CEO, added in a LinkedIn post. “Disney has spent generations creating stories, characters, and worlds that become part of people’s lives. Dhar Mann Studios has spent years building a direct relationship with a global audience of over 170 million followers through optimistic, emotional, deeply relatable storytelling. Those are different models, different histories, different operating systems. But they are not in conflict. To use Disney parlance, it is synergistic!”

Meanwhile the Disney team complimented Mann and his studio, saying they “have forged an extraordinary connection with their audience, and we believe their optimistic, deeply relatable storytelling will connect in a meaningful way with Disney fans.”

Whatever shape the Dhar Mann x Disney episodes end up taking, they will be yet another way for Mann (who signed a 40-microseries deal with Fox and Holywater earlier this year, and is also the NFL’s “Chief Kindness Officer“) to spread his influence to more viewers on more platforms.

And maybe it’s a way for Disney to step into the creator-poaching ring Netflix has been firmly occupying for years.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.

This week, a legendary web series adds another record, a Gen Alpha favorite is slinging quesadillas, and a fast-growing YouTube channel is all about LeGolf.

Creator commotion

The Guild has become the biggest Kickstarter film campaign of all time. When Felicia Day’s iconic web series returned with a crowdfunding campaign for a feature film, we knew Ren Faire’d would be a big deal. We didn’t know it would be this big. After raising over $5.8 million, The Guild‘s Kickstarter broke platform records. Take that, Veronica Mars!

‘Gangnam Style’ becomes the ninth YouTube video with six billion views. 14 years after Psy’s smash hit arrived, K-pop is still a titanic force in mainstream entertainment. Another Korean video, ‘Baby Shark’, is #1 in the YouTube rankings with 17.2 billion views. No one is catching up to that for a long time, but Crazy Frog’s ‘Axel F’ is on pace to become the next member of the six million club.

Sean Duffy is the latest Trump cabinet member with his own web series. First, RFK, Jr. cooked up healthy eats on YouTube. Now, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is traveling across the United States as part of The Great American Road Trip. The show was supposed to drop in June but is just arriving on YouTube now.

Order up!

The “Salish Matter Order” has come to Chipotle. Matter, a 16-year-old with a sizable Gen Alpha fanbase on YouTube, has her own quesadilla (plus chips and chocolate) on the Chipotle menu. Matter is the youngest creator with a digital menu item at Chipotle, and fans who post about it can win a chance to meet her in Los Angeles.

Speaking of fast casual Mexican food, say hello to The Fat Grilled Burrito. Taco John’s wants to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to creator-inspired menu items, so it teamed up with Nic Flood, also known as The Fat Electrician. Flood is a longtime Taco John’s fan, so the collab was a match made in burrito heaven.

An 89-year-old’s matcha takes have made him a TikTok star. The New York Times published a profile of Werner Kalecinski, whose reviews of eateries have made him a TikTok favorite in his native Germany. Kalecinski is getting the hang of this social media thing, even if he doesn’t understand why matcha has become such a big deal.

Sports and games

A titan of basketball has become a titan of YouTube’s golf scene, too. A reunion of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers gave LeBron James a choice piece of content for his new YouTube channel. LeBron only needed a few days to get millions of views on YouTube, so he clearly dominates golf vlogs the same way he dominated the aforementioned 2016 season.

En garde! Fencing is the latest sport courting creators. Creator content can provide a boost for any sport centered around individual personalities, and fencing certainly fits that bill. At an upcoming “creator showdown” in New York, Olympians will face off against influencers to see how the newbies fare in the world of physical chess. The creators know about sharing, but what about sabering?

Is YouTube going to pay over $1 billion for the NBA’s local broadcast rights? Recent reports suggest that YouTube is the frontrunner to land that package. The NBA has long had a huge presence on YouTube, so a broadcast deal of this nature would make sense, even if it would make NBA rights even more fractured.

Agency dealings

Alex Cooper is switching up her representation. Fresh off a massive funding deal, the Call Her Daddy host is reportedly breaking up with her agent at UTA, according to Bloomberg. Though the details aren’t official, Cooper apparently has her eyes on a new team of reps at another major agency: CAA.

Eitan Bernath will expand his foodie empire alongside CAA. Bernath has shared approachable recipes across multiple platforms, with a particularly strong presence on Snapchat. He has appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and has published a cookbook, and his deal with CAA will help him chase more offline ventures.

Also new to the CAA family: Kat and Déjà Clark. The mother-and-daughter duo are Australian natives, but after building a 20 million-strong social following, they moved to L.A. to level up their careers. To wit, they’ve now linked up with one of the biggest Hollywood agencies, with future retail opportunities on deck.

The internet is a strange place

e.l.f. brings its pickle-inspired lip balms back to TikTok Shop. I guess, for some reason, that e.l.f.’s digital-native audience can’t get enough of pickle-flavored cosmetics, so a bizarre lip balm is back in stock. Is this the time for me to call the promotion a screaming good dill?

Taiwan is testing what life is like without the internet. With simulated internet blackouts, Taiwan is recognizing the vulnerability of its undersea internet cables. Taiwanese citizens got to experience life without TikTok, at least for a short while.

Instagram’s bench reviewer has delivered his first perfect ten. Sam Wilmot has sat on a lot of benches during the seven years he has run his Rate This Bench account. Now, the bench that played a role in his relationship has received his most glowing review ever. Let’s give the guy a sitting ovation.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

In summer 2021, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm could suss out new users’ interests in under two hours, and then drive them into ever-narrowing “rabbit holes” of content.

A few months later, around Christmastime, TikTok announced it was increasing its efforts to “safeguard and diversify recommendations.”

Those efforts included testing “ways to avoid recommending a series of similar content–such as around extreme dieting or fitness, sadness, or breakups–to protect against viewing too much of a content category that may be fine as a single video but problematic if viewed in clusters,” the platform said. (It deemed those clusters “filter bubbles.”)

But not every user would get access to those protections.

Without informing the public, TikTok reportedly ran an experiment where it sorted ~15 million users into a control group whose accounts would be fed by the default recommendation algorithm, with no safety net against patterns of potentially harmful content.

One of the people in that control group, 16-year-old Chase Nasca, “fell into a filter bubble where his account was recommended a repetitive amount of content surrounding Suicide and Self Harm and depressive topics,” according to an internal TikTok document recently reported by Bloomberg.

Nasca was placed in the control group in January 2022. He committed suicide a month later.

The same internal TikTok document showed that Nasca watched 7,563 videos in the last two weeks of his life. 73% of those contained themes like sadness, depression, and personal struggles. 10% of the videos were apparently found to violate TikTok’s own TOS.

Now, following Bloomberg‘s report, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have sent a joint letter to TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew and Adam Presser, the CEO of TikTok’s U.S. operations, asking them to explain the algorithm experiment and why minors like Nasca were enrolled in the unprotected control group.

“We write regarding disgusting new reports that TikTok knowingly withheld a critical safety measure for millions of American users—including children—in order to determine whether protecting users would impact its financial bottom-line,” Blackburn and Blumenthal said in the letter. “These revelations raise serious questions about TikTok’s repeated assurances to Congress, parents, and the American public that it prioritizes the safety and well-being of young people over profit.”

About Nasca specifically, they added, “TikTok intentionally withheld from Chase the exact safety protections that were developed to interrupt precisely this deluge of abuse.”

Blackburn and Blumenthal’s letter includes a list of 13 requests for in-depth information about the “filter bubble” experiment, and gives TikTok a Sept. 1 deadline to respond.

This news comes as the Department of Justice announced a $400 million settlement with TikTok and its parent ByteDance over COPPA violations.

The DOJ’s suit, filed in 2024, accused TikTok of failing to protect children’s privacy and illegally collecting their personal information.

TikTok, which declined to comment on the settlement, agreed to pay $300 million immediately, and will pay another $100 million once the U.S. government vacates a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. It previously paid a $5.7 million fine over that case.

In its court filing for the DOJ case, TikTok said it’s developed systems that identify children under 13 who misrepresent their ages, and that it has thousands of moderators trained in handling underage accounts. Together, these systems and moderators have deleted tens of thousands of underage accounts, it said.

The Department of Justice did note that since it originally filed its complaint in 2024, TikTok “has undergone significant changes to its ownership, management, compliance functions, and privacy practices,” and has also “implemented extensive measures designed to strengthen safeguards for younger users, improve age-related controls, and enhance parental oversight.”

“Those developments have materially advanced the public interests underlying the Department’s litigation and have strengthened protections for millions of American families,” the Department said in an official press release.

As mentioned above, the algorithm experiment TikTok ran was in 2021/2022–so, again, a lot of things have changed. And not just at TikTok.

Here in 2026, entire countries have clamped down on keeping young people off social media, and platforms are increasingly introducing age verification systems (though that practice has sparked its own wave of privacy concerns).

But studies show that short-form content–regardless of its topic or the age of the viewer–can have negative effects on the brain, and we’re now in an era of internet where people are flooded with endless amounts of short-form every day, across every platform.

Platforms can’t–and shouldn’t be able to–stop adults from watching as much TOS-compliant content as they want to. On an individual basis, however, it might be worth thinking about how much you’re consuming, and when it’s time to unplug.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Next month, Jaron Brower will take the stage at VidSummit 2026 to tell attendees exactly how he averages 50 million views for every single video he uploads to his YouTube channel.

Brower, who’s 21, is perhaps better known as “Dr. Plants.” He uploaded his first YouTube video on Aug. 23, 2022. That video, an 8-minute upload following a “little chunk of rainforest” he built in his living room from newborn paludarium to mature ecosystem, took over a year to make.

And in the four years since posting it, he’s posted just 11 more.

That’s because all of Brower’s videos are just as time-consuming and high-effort–if not more so–to make. He specializes in creating intricate, cycling microcosms, entire miniature worlds stocked with top-to-bottom food chains, biome-accurate weather patterns, and even functional seasons.

In the idea-conception stage, he sets out to tell a story about the natural world, and doing that right takes extraordinary commitment.

“Every time I make a video, I live on a thesis,” he says. “That thesis is, I’m only going to do it if I can do it better than anyone else has ever done it. If I’m going to make a video about hatching eggs, it has to be the best video about hatching eggs that has ever been posted on YouTube. It’s the only way I’m going to do it.”

The “video about eggs” he’s referring to involved hatching and becoming full-time Dad to 100 quails, 20 ducks, and 10 ostriches. Not exactly a day’s work.

“My whole life, I’ve always wanted to hatch an egg. Why not hatch ostrich eggs, right? And then I hatched 10 of them in my kitchen,” he says. “I’m a normal person, by the way.”

On top of committing the time and space needed to incubate all the eggs and raise the post-hatch babies in his own home (“normal residential house, by the way”), Brower had to buy industrial incubators, bring in a team of bird care professionals, fully fence in his yard, and get specialized camera equipment that could film around the clock.

Because his productions are so high-lift and long-lived, Brower is generally working on three to four videos at any given time. He finishes and posts around three a year.

Right now, those videos average 56 million views apiece–a figure that’s consistently grown year over year.

While Brower admits his particular projects are a lot of work, and that he’s unusually equipped to care for plants, animals, and their environments, he says his personal philosophical approach to content–doing a given idea better than anyone else–is replicable across the platform, for makers of all kinds of videos.

“So many people just take what already exists out there and manipulate it to make it their own,” he says. “I feel like we have a real lack of creativity and innovation on the platform, and I don’t think people realize how much you’ll get rewarded when you’re really innovating and creating new things, and how easy it actually is to achieve views like this.”

He adds, “I was editing these videos under my desk in high school. And I didn’t have an amazing camera. They were filmed on my phone, and I was recording audio on a mic plugged into my phone. [The views were] just because I was telling a story, and a really compelling story.”

At VidSummit, he’ll offer his story to its 4,000+ attendees.

“In my presentation, I’m going to give a clear, step-by-step blueprint for creating videos that not only outgrow their niche, but they’re going to be conquering the platform and having the potential to reach the entire world,” he says. “I’m 100% confident that every person walking out of this presentation is going to walk out at least learning something. And I can tell you that most people will not look at the platform the same way again.”

VidSummit 2026 will run Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at the Irving Convention Center in Dallas-Fort Worth. Brower will join dozens of other speakers (including Caleb Hammer, HopeScope, LegalEagle, Nick Nimmin, Monica Khan, and Jon Youshaei) offering a smorgasbord of panels, discussions, workshops, networking events, and more.

Tickets are $995, and remaining spots are limited. You can book your spot here.

VidSummit is a Tubefilter partner.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

A decade ago, this would have been a surreal headline from The Onion, but in 2026, it’s actual reality: A U.S. Army unit based in Georgia is offering soldiers a four-day leave pass to play Grand Theft Auto VI if they reenlist for up to six years.

And 20 people have already accepted the pass, an Army spokesperson told CBS News.

As you probably know, GTA VI is the very eagerly anticipated addition to Rockstar Games‘ leading cash cow IP (sorry, Red Dead Redemption). Its predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V, came out way back in 2013, and the long wait time for VI has turned its release into an omnipresent meme.

After several production delays, GTA VI‘s drop date is finally set for Nov. 19, 2026.

That’s when soldiers at Fort Stewart, in the Army’s 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion, part of the 3rd Infantry Division, will get their four-day leave passes–if they sign a reenlistment contract between Aug. 1, 2026 and Nov. 14.

So, again, to be clear, that’s four days off for a minimum of two more years of military service–up to a maximum of six more years.

Though soldiers don’t explicitly have to use the pass to play GTA, playtime is how the pass has been advertised to them. An Army memo issued to soldiers said the pass is being issued to align with “the highly anticipated release of the video game Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA 6).”

“The idea was to have a unique incentives program that connects to what Soldiers are interested in,” Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, a spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement reported by CBS. “The command team, in conjunction with the career counselor, wanted to get soldiers excited to reenlist.”

Obviously this is far from the first time the military has used incentives to convince soldiers to sign up and/or reenlist. Post-service college tuition coverage is a well-known incentive, and branches have also offered things like cash bonuses, career training, and choice duty station assignments.

As CBS points out, this also isn’t the first time the Army has set out to specifically woo gamers. Back in 2018, alarmed by shrinking enlistment, the branch decided to try new, pop-culture-savvier methods of reaching the youths. It dispatched recruiters to gaming conventions and launched its own esports team to compete in tournaments for high-traffic titles like Call of Duty, Fortnite, and League of Legends.

Here at Tubefilter, we’ve seen a rise in interactions between military branches and our industry. For example, in April, the 2nd Marine Division collaborated with Newsweek‘s YouTube series Unconventional for a Jeep-sponsored video that promises to take viewers “inside a Marine expeditionary operation.”

We’re guessing the Marines’ ultimate goal with that video, like the Army’s with the GTA VI pass, is to attract more enlistment.

Right now, the GTA VI pass is limited to the roughly 130 soldiers who are part of Fort Stewart’s 9th Brigade Engineering Battalion. But it could be expanded to more units–and if Army leaders consider it successful, maybe they’ll offer other, similar passes for gaming/pop culture touchstones in the future.

What a world we live in.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

The English Premier League returns for a new season on August 21, and two days later, a Portuguese-language broadcast partner will kick off an innovative strategy. The August 23 tilt between Manchester City and Bournemouth will be the first Premier League match aired by LiveMode, the parent company of record-breaking Brazilian channel CazéTV.

In Brazil and Portugal, LiveMode will broadcast one Premier League match per week for free on YouTube. The company founded in 2017 by Edgar Diniz and Sérgio Lopes has also acquired partial broadcast rights for the UEFA Champions League, which is widely regarded as the world’s biggest international club football competition.

LiveMode made a huge splash during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when the creator behind CazéTV — whose real name is Casimiro Miguel — broadcast every match on his YouTube channel. Those streams brought Miguel to the top rung of the YouTube ladder. 20 different CazéTV World Cup streams eclipsed the previous record for the most concurrent viewers on a YouTube live stream. Five of those streams, including Miguel’s broadcast of Brazil’s match against Japan, attracted more than 20 million concurrent YouTube viewers. And throughout the duration of the World Cup, CazéTV occupied the #1 spot in our Global Sub Top 50 ranking.

Translation: CazéTV rewrote the playbook for pro sports broadcasts. In the wake of that World Cup success story, LiveMode moved quickly to capitalize on its surging popularity. CazéTV, for example, has secured the broadcast rights for tennis’ WTA Tour through 2030.

Soccer, however, is LiveMode’s top draw, so the Rio-based company is expanding its presence on the pitch. A deal with ESPN enabled LiveMode’s Premier League broadcasts in Brazil, and in Portugal, a similar agreement with DAZN will pave the way for free, YouTube-based coverage of the Prem.

“The online streaming of Premier League and UEFA Champions League matches reinforces our commitment to bringing fans some of the greatest moments in international football, always through a native and digital experience,” said LiveMode TV General Manager João Mesquita in a statement. “More than just making these games available on YouTube, we want to continue creating a space where fans can follow football their way, sharing every moment with family, friends, and a community that grows with each competition.”

The deal has clear potential for LiveMode, but DAZN stands to benefit, too. The broad reach of creator broadcasts can turn casual viewers into diehard fans. Then, when Portugal’s Premier League newcomers want to watch more than one match per week, they’ll have to sign up for DAZN’s subscription-based service. It’s a similar strategy to the one DAZN has adopted in Britain, where it is letting KSI stream some of the matches of the club he owns, Dagenham & Redbridge FC.

CazéTV’s World Cup streams proved that a new era of sports coverage is imminent, and the upcoming European soccer seasons represent the next frontier for those creator-commentators. LiveMode is already backed by the GOAT of Portuguese sports, Cristiano Ronaldo. Now, it’s trying to become the GOAT of Portuguese sports broadcasters.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Can one of China’s biggest video hosting sites compete with the titans of the Western tech industry? BiliBili is about to find out.

The 17-year-old entertainment hub, which ranks among the top 100 most-visited webpages in the world, is expanding. After developing a reputation as the Chinese version of YouTube, BiliBili is looking to compete across the globe by launching an international platform and hiring in key regions.

In China, where YouTube is banned, BiliBili is a gateway to local audiences. In addition to its library of user-generated content, it also hosts several original programs. One of its first originals, The Daily Life of the Immortal King, has run for five seasons and more than 60 episodes.

Some Western creators have sought connections with Chinese viewers by bringing their videos to BiliBili. Most notably, MrBeast arrived on the platform in 2024 and quickly rolled up millions of views.

Now, BiliBili is testing whether that effect will work in reverse. The international rise of TikTok — which began as an offshoot of the Chinese platform Douyin — has given more visibility to East Asian creators and cultural trends. Microdramas are booming, ecommerce has become big business in the West, and China-based personalities like Songsong and Ermao now rank among the most-watched creators on YouTube.

In other words, the proverbial iron is hot, and BiliBili is ready to strike. According to Semafor, which cited job postings, product listings, and Discord chatter, BiliBili is primed for overseas expansion. An international platform that was discontinued last year has been relaunched, ID requirements for overseas signups have been dropped, and BiliBili offices are adding staff in cities like Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, São Paulo, Istanbul, and Tokyo.

“Yes, BiliBili is going global,” reads a tweet from the company’s Creator Hub. “Follow for more updates.”

For BiliBili, staying competitive in regions where both YouTube and TikTok are active will be no small task. Another Chinese platform, known locally as Xiaohongshu and internationally as RedNote, tried to turn the U.S. TikTok ban threat into an expansion opportunity. Instead, Westerners regarded RedNote as a curiosity and gave up on it once TikTok’s American operations were secured.

BiliBili, however, offers plenty of opportunities to earn, and that could be a major selling point. A signature feature is real-time, side-scrolling “danmu” comments, which creators can monetize. It’s as if YouTube’s Super Chats were crossed with a bullet hell video game.

BiliBili creators can also receive funding directly from their fans. A Discord chat for BiliBili users alluded to the platform’s “Gen Z Coded, affluent and well-educated” user base.

If BiliBili can become a dependable revenue stream for its new users, it will certainly attract attention from Western creators. MrBeast has already brought his videos to China’s version of YouTube. Who will follow him there?

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.