Geekout Newsletter #5 - Hot Zuckerberg Action 😲🔥

What did I learn this week…? Zuck doesn’t f**k about when it comes to sunscreen? 👈🔥😮

In more serious news, the usual suspects have dominated the social media news headlines:

We’ll dig into these stories and all the rest of the week’s news in a moment.

First, a quick bit of news about me:

You can now book 30 or 60 minute online consultation appointments with me via SuperPeer.

If you want to get social media support and guidance, or career coaching and mentoring from me, you can head over to SuperPeer and pick a time slot. Simples!

Right, let’s dig into the news and see what went down this week. There are also lots of shiny new features and tools to talk about!

And if you like this newsletter, please share it! View it in your browser and share the link on social media. 🙏

— Matt

The big unanswered question after last week’s big Twitter hack was ‘were any DMs accessed?’ The answer, Twitter has now revealed, was yes. According to the company, 36 users had their DMs breached. That’s a small number, but they were high-profile users so they could potentially have had valuable information among their messages.

It’s a reminder that using Twitter DMs for sensitive private chats isn’t the wisest of ideas. They’re not encrypted, and there’s a chance a determined hacker could get their hands on them.

Reuters reports that 1,000 people inside Twitter had access to the tools the hackers breached. And the New York Times says access details were even pinned in an internal Slack channel! Whatever happens with the criminal investigation into the hack, Twitter has some serious questions to answer about its internal security.

How can TikTok be saved from a US ban that would ruin the app’s community and valuation overnight?

Bloomberg [$$$] this week reported the latest detail on what might be the best option: selling most of TikTok to its US investors. “The idea is that TikTok could become a U.S. company, while ByteDance retains a minority stake. This scenario has been discussed for months with various iterations, including a group of venture firms or strategic partners buying the additional equity, according to one person involved in the talks.”

Other options include just selling the US part of TikTok, splitting the company into completely separate Chinese and international companies, or making ByteDance an entirely American company. There are no easy answers, but Donald Trump clearly sees a win against China in banning TikTok, or at least getting tough on it, so the stakes are high and ByteDance will likely have to do something soon.

Just this week, the Trump campaign urged supporters to back a TikTok ban [$$$] and American lawmakers moved to ban the app from all government issued devices over security concerns.

A passionate video from a departing Facebook employee cuts straight to the heart of what employees have been saying about the company. You can listen to the audio at the link above, where Max Wang accuses Facebook leadership of a gaslighting bait-and-switch that allows them to ignore employees concerns that free expression isn’t always an entirely good thing.

The more we hear, the clearer it is that Facebook’s leadership culture is too rigid in its views in the face of a rapidly changing world.

And it’s still too reactive. It was interesting to see Facebook this week announce that it will investigate whether its algorithms are racially biased. This is a good move, but it follows a recent scathing civil rights audit, and came just a day before NBC News reported that Facebook management had shut down similar internal investigations at Instagram last year. Whether or not the announcement was timed to ‘spoil’ the NBC News story, it’s not a good look to appear so off the ball on issues people have raised for years.

…And that’s a wrap for this week.

Consider yourself fully updated!

If you want more social media manager geekiness, head to my Geekout Group on Facebook.

Got a question or feedback about this newsletter? Reply to this email or hit me up in a DM on Twitter.

Somewhere in the world it’s 5pm on a Friday, so I’m off to pour myself a drink.

Have a great weekend!

Goodbye Geeks! ❤️

This newsletter is edited by Martin SFP Bryant.