A Justiça do Trabalho determinou nesta quinta-feira (29) que a Meta, dona no Instagram, Facebook e WhatsApp, retire do ar, em até 24 horas, publicações do Instagram que incentivam empresários a vigiar, expor e demitir funcionários em razão de suas escolhas políticas.
A empresa também deverá exibir, em até 72 horas e durante cinco dias consecutivos, um aviso a todos os usuários do Instagram, Facebook e Threads no Brasil informando que a discriminação política e o assédio eleitoral no ambiente de trabalho são proibidos. O descumprimento das determinações poderá resultar em multa de R$ 200 mil.
A CNNBrasil procurou a Meta para pedir um posicionamento sobre a decisão, mas não recebeu retorno até a publicação deste texto. O espaço segue aberto.
Na avaliação do juiz Bruno José Perusso, da 77ª Vara do Trabalho de São Paulo, as publicações ultrapassam os limites da liberdade de expressão ao estimular práticas discriminatórias contra trabalhadores exclusivamente por suas convicções políticas.
“Uma coisa é externar opinião política ou crítica partidária; outra, inteiramente distinta e ilícita, é utilizar as plataformas digitais para instigar a punição de trabalhadores por suas escolhas ideológicas“, afirma Perusso na decisão.
O magistrado também disse que, embora o empregador possa demitir um funcionário sem apresentar justificativa, a dispensa motivada exclusivamente por questões políticas é proibida pela Constituição.
Os conteúdos indicados pelo MPT (Ministério Público do Trabalho) devem ser retirados imediatamente das recomendações da plataforma, como as abas de Explorar e Reels, e totalmente excluídos em até 24 horas. A empresa também terá de comunicar aos responsáveis pelos perfis, em até 48 horas, que as publicações foram removidas por determinação judicial.
O texto definido pela Justiça diz: “A legislação brasileira e a Constituição Federal proíbem a discriminação de trabalhadores e a prática de assédio eleitoral nas relações de trabalho. Ninguém pode ser punido, exposto, preterido na contratação ou dispensado em razão de sua convicção, preferência ou manifestação política“.
A decisão estabelece ainda que a companhia preserve os conteúdos retirados do ar e seus respectivos dados técnicos até o encerramento do processo.
Já o pedido do MPT para que a Meta pague R$ 50 milhões por danos morais coletivos será analisado no julgamento da ação. Procurada pela CNN, a empresa disse que não vai comentar o caso.
O Ministério Público do Trabalho (MPT) acionou a Justiça, nesta quinta-feira (29), para obrigar a Meta a retirar do ar, em até 24 horas, todas as publicações que estimulem empresários a vigiar, expor, deixar de contratar e demitir funcionários por preferências políticas ou voto. O pedido inclui as plataformas Instagram, Facebook e Threads, que pertencem à big tech americana.
O MPT aponta a responsabilidade da Meta pelo conteúdo publicado em suas plataformas e pede que o Tribunal Regional do Trabalho (TRT) da 2ª Região arbitre indenização de R$ 50 milhões por danos morais coletivos.
Embora os sete procuradores que assinam a ação tenham apontado a urgência da remoção das publicações que caracterizem assédio eleitoral, a primeira audiência foi agendada para o dia 29 de março de 2027, na 77ª Vara do Trabalho de São Paulo.
O maior número de denúncias é proveniente de São Paulo (620), seguido de Minas Gerais (351), Paraná (338), Rio de Janeiro (252), Rio Grande do Sul (223) e Santa Catarina (165).
Os dados coincidem com a multiplicação de relatos sobre incentivos a boicotes e a demissões de funcionários que tenham votado em candidato contrário à orientação política do patrão.
De acordo com o MPT, passado o pleito em que o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva se reelegeu, perfis nas plataformas digitais passaram a incentivar e orientar empregadores a vasculharem as redes sociais de seus funcionários ou colaboradores com o objetivo de descobrir em quem estes votaram e, no caso de a opção ser diferente da patronal, demiti-los.
“Outras publicações expõem pessoas à ridicularização, com nome e imagem, ou comemoram demissões”, sustenta o MPT, assegurando que só quatro das publicações analisadas em um único perfil, que totaliza 3,8 milhões de seguidores, somaram mais de 2 milhões de curtidas.
De acordo com o MPT, além de permitir conteúdos ilegais durante dias, os próprios sistemas de recomendação da Meta, como a aba ‘Explorar’ e os ‘Reels’ sugeridos, ampliam o alcance do que gera mais engajamento.
Consultada pela reportagem, a Meta informou que não comentaria o assunto.
Instagram is offering some creators six figures to help make it a long-form video hub.
The Meta platform is reviving its IGTV ambitions, allowing horizontal videos of up to 90 minutes.
Creators are required to cross-post their long-form YouTube content to Instagram as part of nonexclusive deals.
Instagram wants what YouTube has — and it's willing to pay up to get it.
In an effort to persuade content creators to post long-form video on Instagram, the company is paying a select number of creators hefty sums, according to people familiar with the deals.
Not every deal is equal. The Meta-owned platform has offered select creators $50,000 to post long-form video to its new "Features" product, while others have been offered six-figure deals, some of which have reached $500,000, Business Insider exclusively learned.
"We've been public about the fact that we are funding Features content directly with some creators right now to support them," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. "The details of those deals are confidential, but we're excited to see the content going live."
On Monday, Instagram unveiled an overhaul of its video formats. Most importantly, it's resurrecting IGTV — a long-form video product Instagram launched in 2018 and sunset in 2022 — in the form of Features. The horizontal, wide-screen videos will exist within the Instagram app, and can be as long as a feature film: 90 minutes.
Instagram is expanding its offerings for long-form video content.
Meta
Long-form video isn't exactly what people are used to watching on Instagram. Reels, the platform's answer to TikTok's meteoric rise, has redefined the Instagram experience and is driving time-spent and revenue across Meta's apps.
YouTube, however, reigns king as the internet's destination for sit-down, longer-form videos.
Instagram knows this. The deals do not require exclusivity to Instagram, multiple people familiar with the agreements said; one person familiar with the offers said it's asking creators to post to Instagram any of the long-form content they publish to YouTube that same day.
Reza Izad, partner at Underscore Talent, which reps clients like "Subway Takes'" Kareem Rahma and Noah Beck, called the deals an "exciting opportunity" for creators.
"Every time there's a new feature in these apps that the company's promoting, people will have more opportunity to be seen because there's going to be algorithmic preference to this kind of content," he said. "And unlike short-form, there's not a lot of abundance."
Money, money, money
This isn't the first time Instagram has inked paid deals with creators to lure them to post more on Meta's apps.
Last year, Meta was paying creators thousands of dollars to post short-form videos to Instagram and Facebook in the midst of TikTok's potential ban. The company has tested several bonus programs paying creators for the performance of their Reels on Instagram, though those programs have dwindled.
Back in 2021, when IGTV was still part of Instagram's big video bet, it inked deals with creators, funding long-form episodic shows from creators like TikTok's "Sway Boys" and "Dance Moms" alum Nia Sioux. Briefly, IGTV had its own monetization program, too, which let some creators earn a cut from ad revenue on the format.
While Instagram is paying some creators directly, a big question looms over the creator economy: What about the rest of them?
A major draw of YouTube is its long-standing Partner Program, which pays eligible creators a share of the ad revenue generated by their videos. Even though YouTube has increased its eligibility requirements, the potential to turn a hobby or passion project into a cash-earning career has kept YouTube on top as the go-to video platform for creators.
It's no surprise, then, that when Instagram announced its video overhaul, creators immediately had questions about monetization.
"We understand the economics matter a ton, and are exploring multiple options to help long-form creators get paid," Instagram's top executive, Adam Mosseri, wrote in an X post on Wednesday.
But one thing that Meta has decided it shouldn't brag about is that it can track who unfollowed you on Instagram.
About a week ago, Rachel Karten, who writes the excellent marketing newsletter Link in Bio, noticed a strange ad on Instagram. The ad encouraged people to download Muse, with an image of the fuzzy mascot holding up red and green Tinder-esque signs, suggesting you could "See who unfollowed you each week."
i get that this is technically a requested feature but wouldn’t it lead to more resentment towards your own platform? pic.twitter.com/SbM6VdcdhV
Finding out who unfollowed you on Instagram is something people have wanted to know since the app first launched. But Instagram — for good reasons — has avoided making this a feature on its own app.
I reached out to Meta to ask about this seeming clash, and a Meta spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the ad had been removed and is no longer active in the Meta ad library.
Instagram doesn't want you to know your unfollows
Here's the tension: Instagram knows that people want this feature, but it also knows it would be bad for the platform's vibes.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri regularly does AMAs on his personal account, and he's answered questions about why there's no "who unfollowed me" feature. His reasoning (gone from his page but have been aggregated in other videos) is that they want to make people feel comfortable unfollowing people they're no longer interested in.
To most people, it is obvious that this feature could hurt people's feelings, especially younger users (let's assume that Instagram does care about teen users' feelings here, although I understand if you have some hesitations on that). Feeling bad while using the platform is a bad user experience!
It's also ultimately bad for Instagram. If you're reluctant to unfollow accounts you don't like, then you'll end up with a feed that's less compelling, and you'll end up opening Instagram less often or spending less time on it. That's bad for Instagram's daily active user metrics!
Yes, Muse can actually do this
There are, and have been, third-party services that can track who unfollows you. These sometimes require access to your login info in ways I definitely wouldn't recommend, and can track over time who has unfollowed you. So it's not like Muse is doing something totally novel or unheard of here.
I asked Muse to do this for me, and it said it could — with a caveat: it will start tracking my follow lists to see who unfollows me going forward, but it can't retroactively check who unfollowed me in the past (that's mostly the same as the other trackers). And honestly? I don't want to know! No thanks! Yikes!
I asked Muse to track who unfollowed me on Instagram (despite not wanting to really know). It could only track going forward, but after two days, it found one.
Business Insider
Is this just one stupid ad? Yes. Was it set up and run as an ad by someone at Meta far removed from Instagram's philosophy on unfollows? Probably. Is it the most shocking news in the world if Meta runs a single ad and then takes it down? No.
But this interests me so much because it gets at a bigger and thornier issue. AI agents like Muse are what Meta clearly sees as the future of the company and how people use its services. But AI agents' abilities and use cases may be at odds with the nature of social media.
In the simplest way, AI agents are supposed to help you be efficient and get things done. Social media is supposed to help you waste your time.
These are two vastly different objectives — and it's going to be interesting to see how these two new technological pillars of Meta clash or complement each other.
Already, we have one Meta product (Muse) that is more than happy to do something that another Meta product (Instagram) has long discouraged.
There are plenty of other features that people want to do on social media, but Instagram and Facebook don't allow because it's bad for the overall health of the platforms. Suddenly, AI agents like Muse can do these long-forbidden things. The question is: how far is Meta willing to cannibalize the health of its own social platforms for the sake of growing its AI?
Logan Ivey asked Airbnb to "hire me" with a balloon résumé.
Logan Ivey
Logan Ivey wanted to make videos for Airbnb. So, he put his résumé on a balloon.
His video about it got over 16 million views, and Airbnb offered him a contractor gig.
"There is just no competing with that with a 1 page resume," he told Business Insider in an email.
Job applicants have dozens of tricks to make their résumés stand out. They print their CVs on colored paper or use eye-catching fonts. They include prompt injections for AI.
Logan Ivey put his résumé on a balloon.
Ivey has been making videos full-time since 2022, he told Business Insider in an email, and helped scale Matter Neuroscience's Instagram page to over 300,000 followers.
When looking for a new gig, Ivey made a list of what he considered the best companies with the worst Instagram accounts. "I thought airbnb was the coolest!" he wrote. "Being paid to travel and stay in cool places seems like a dream job."
Ivey compared his own Instagram videos to Airbnb's on a balloon.
Logan Ivey
So, he put "hire me" in big letters on a star-shaped balloon, along with a comparison of his and Airbnb's Instagram engagement rates, likes per post, and views per reel, based on his calculations.
Ivey then put the deflated balloon in a lockbox, similar to the ones Airbnb hosts use to store their property keys. He then mailed it to Airbnb, who would have to fill the balloon with air (get it?).
The deflated balloon résumé was put inside an Airbnb-style lockbox.
Logan Ivey/@heckin.sick
He posted a video about the process on Instagram on October 3. It's since racked up 16 million views, and Airbnb quickly responded: "Logaaaannnn my guy, my friend, check your DMs before this package triggers a security incident."
The company's account said it had the "perfect role" for Ivey.
Sure enough, Ivey posted an update three weeks later. Airbnb had DMed him, he said, and the two sides agreed that Ivey would make some videos. He listed some spots he'd like to film: a treehouse, a former elementary school, and a bath made of rock.
Ivey told Business Insider that he'll be a contractor and that "nothing beyond the follow up video I made has been set in stone yet."
Let's face it: the job market can feel impossible these days, and applicants are aiming for as much visibility as possible. Becoming a "LinkedIn lunatic" might help. Another applicant received her job offer after posting a presentation that pitched herself.
Ivey's takeaway: make yourself stand out. Before making his balloon-résumé video, he'd applied to about 15 jobs without receiving a single interview.
"Making your skillset widely known is definitely beneficial," he told BI. "One company told me they have 10,000 applicants per job posting. There is just no competing with that with a 1 page resume."
È in arrivo un’importante novità per Instagram, che si appresta a introdurre una funzionalità che consentirà di caricare video della durata massima di 90 minuti. La nuova funzionalità, che si chiamerà “Features“, potrà essere sfrutatta per portare sulla piattaforma di Meta tutti quei contenuti che al momento potevano essere fruiti solo al di fuori di essa. Molti podcast, ad esempio, potevano solo essere promossi tramite alcune brevi clip su Instagram, mentre ora intere puntate – purché la durata non superi l’ora e mezza – potranno essere caricate.
Per ora questa funzionalità è ancora in fase di sperimentazione: si sta, infatti, testando negli Stati Uniti, dove è disponibile per un piccolo gruppo di utenti, e con alcuni creator in Brasile, secondo quanto riferito da Megan Buckley, portavoce di Instagram. Ad annunciare questa novità è stato lo stesso capo di Instagram Adam Mosseri, che insieme Tessa Lyons, vicepresidente della sezione prodotti di Instagram, ne ha spiegato le ragioni.
“Reels rimarrà una parte fondamentale di Instagram. Ma quando si desidera approfondire la conoscenza dei creator preferiti e dei contenuti che creano, la possibilità di farlo dovrebbe essere disponibile su Instagram” ha spiegato Lyons. Mosseri ha anche raccontato di essere stato a lungo contrario sulla possibilità di introdurre su Instagram contenuti più lunghi dei venti minuti fino a oggi consentiti.
Ora il vero interrogativo rimane se questa operazione si rivelerà vincente. Al momento, infatti, Instagram non garantisce la possibilità di monetizzare in maniera diretta tramite i contenuti che si caricano sulla piattaforma, a differenza di quanto avviene ad esempio su YouTube dove i guadagni sono garantiti sia dalla pubblicità che dal numero di abbonati a un canale. Anche su Instagram esisterebbe la possibilità di abbonarsi al canale di un creator, ma al momento è un’ipotesi che viene quasi totalmente trascurata.
“È troppo presto per condividere un modello di monetizzazione a lungo termine, ma stiamo esplorando diverse modalità per consentire ai creatori di guadagnare da brand, fan e Instagram, inclusi incentivi basati sulle prestazioni” ha spiegato un portavoce di Instagram alla rivista TechCrunch.
O influenciador Lucas Guedez, de 31 anos, usou as redes sociais para criticar Vini Jr., 26, depois que o jogador do Real Madrid deixou de segui-lo no Instagram. Irritado com a situação, Lucas afirmou que sempre discordou das atitudes do atleta durante o relacionamento dele com Virginia Fonseca, 27, de quem é amigo.
Em uma publicação, o influenciador reclamou por, segundo ele, acabar sendo prejudicado por não apoiar o comportamento do jogador. “O cara apronta e faz um monte de coisa errada com a minha amiga, e eu ‘pago o pato’ por nunca ter concordado com as ‘cachorrices’ desse babaca que vem me dar unfollow”, escreveu.
Lucas também demonstrou incômodo por continuar seguindo o perfil do atacante, mesmo depois de ter sido removido da lista de seguidores dele. “Que ódio que me dá quando alguém dá unfollow e deixa a pessoa seguindo como fã. Deu unfollow e me deixou seguindo ele como fã. Eu não sou seu fã! Nunca fui”, declarou.
O influenciador voltou a alfinetar Vini Jr. e indicou que já guardava opiniões negativas sobre o jogador havia algum tempo. A reação repercutiu nas redes sociais após a divulgação de registros da manifestação.
Término de Virginia Fonseca e Vini Jr.
A polêmica acontece semanas após o fim do relacionamento entre Virginia Fonseca e Vini Jr. No início de outubro, a assessoria da influenciadora confirmou à que os dois não estavam mais juntos.
Em comunicado, a equipe de Virginia afirmou que a separação ocorreu sem brigas ou conflitos. “Virginia Fonseca e Vini Jr. não estão mais juntos. Não houve conflito, não houve briga, somente o entendimento de não seguirem mais como um casal”, informou a nota.
O casal havia assumido o namoro em 2025 e enfrentado uma primeira crise, que levou ao término em maio de 2026, em meio a especulações sobre uma possível infidelidade do jogador.
Antes da confirmação mais recente da separação, rumores sobre um novo desentendimento já circulavam nas redes sociais. Informações divulgadas pelo jornalista Leo Dias e pelo perfil Daily do Garotinho apontavam que Virginia e o atleta teriam discutido em Madri, na Espanha, onde ele joga pelo Real Madrid.
As especulações ganharam força depois que a influenciadora viajou para Miami sem a companhia do jogador. Na cidade, ela encontrou o ex-marido, Zé Felipe, para levar os filhos ao cantor, que estava fora do país para se dedicar a projetos musicais.
La Policía Nacional llevaba meses tratando de identificar a este hombre, que había logrador acumular casi 100.000 seguidores en sus redes sociales Leer
La Policía Nacional llevaba meses tratando de identificar a este hombre, que había logrador acumular casi 100.000 seguidores en sus redes sociales
Al igual que la televisión nació para matar a la radio, TikTok nació para matar a YouTube. Otra cosa es que lo consiguiesen. A finales de la década de 2010, todo apuntaba a que los vídeos cortos verticales eran el futuro. En cierto modo fue así, pero jamás se han comido a los tradicionales vídeos horizontales de mayor duración.
Y es que, pasito a pasito, TikTok ha ido aumentando la duración de sus vídeos, y, mientras tanto, Instagram ha ido copiando a TikTok. De este modo, los vídeos verticales en ambas han ido subiendo y subiendo de duración hasta que resulte cotidiano encontrarte con uno de 10 minutos, siendo el máximo 20. Ahora, Instagram dobla la apuesta con los 'Features', sus nuevos vídeos horizontales, de hasta 90 minutos.
Features: el cambio en la fórmula de Instagram
Features es el nuevo formato de Instagram. Está pensado para publicar contenido largo, de hasta 90 minutos, y en formato horizontal. Por tanto, supone una revolución en la red social, que pasa de vídeos verticales de hasta 20 minutos a estos.
Sin embargo, los Features podrán conectarse con los Reels. Y es que los creadores serán capaces de enlazar los vídeos completos desde el formato corto de Instagram. De este modo, alguien que, por ejemplo, visualice un fragmento corto de una entrevista, podrá pasar a la entrevista completa desde la misma app.
Esto supondría un cambio en la identidad de Instagram, puesto que, hasta ahora, muchos creadores de contenido subían un vídeo largo a YouTube y partes a Instagram, para que los usuarios vean el contenido completo en la plataforma roja. Sin embargo, Instagram también debe resolver el dilema del dinero, ya que YouTube paga a los creadores de contenido por sus visualizaciones, mientras que ella permite los patrocinados pero no paga por el propio consumo.
En cuanto a la disponibilidad de Features, su llegada ha sido confirmada por el CEO de Instagram, Adam Mosseri, en su propia cuenta en la red social. Curiosamente Mosseri siempre ha estado en contra de los vídeos largos en la plataforma, ya que, para él, los cortos son los que favorecen los envíos y la interacción entre amigos. Sin embargo, ahora defiende que pueden complementarse, sirviendo los cortos para descubrir contenido y los largos para profundizar en él.
No obstante, no es la primera vez que Instagram prueba un formato de vídeos largos en horizontal. En 2018 lanzó IGTV (por sus siglas, Instagram TV), que experimentó con este tipo de vídeos. La propuesta fue un fracaso, y acabó cerrando en 2022.
Un fusto di birra smarrito quasi mezzo secolo fa tra i ghiacci dell’Alto Adige è riemerso intatto, è stato riportato a valle e, infine, è stato persino aperto e degustato. A documentare l’insolito ritrovamento, avvenuto a circa 3.000 metri di altitudine sotto il rifugio Sasso Nero, nelle Alpi dello Zillertal, è la storica azienda altoatesina di bevande Harpf, che ha condiviso i dettagli e le fotografie dell’impresa attraverso un post sul proprio profilo Instagram in lingua tedesca.
L’incidente originario risale alla fine degli anni Settanta, come testimonia la data del 1978 incisa direttamente sulla superficie metallica del contenitore. Nel post pubblicato dall’azienda si legge: “Riapparsa dopo circa 50 anni: la birra dal ghiaccio. Una scoperta sensazionale nelle Alpi dello Zillertal è stata recentemente portata alla luce dall’autista di Harpf, Daniel. Un fusto di birra smarrito negli anni ’70 è stato recuperato dopo quasi 50 anni”.
A riportare a valle il reperto non è stato dunque un semplice escursionista di passaggio, ma proprio un dipendente dell’azienda di bevande. Il post chiarisce la dinamica dell’incidente e del recupero: “Anni fa, durante la consegna in elicottero, era caduto in un crepaccio e da allora era rimasto disperso. Quest’anno, sotto il rifugio Sasso Nero a circa 3.000 metri di quota, Daniel ha finalmente ritrovato il fusto di birra un po’ ammaccato, che ha riportato a valle grazie a abili manovre con un carrello”.
L’aspetto più curioso della vicenda riguarda l’eccellente stato di conservazione del contenuto. Le temperature estreme e la copertura glaciale hanno infatti funzionato come una cella frigorifera naturale. L’operazione non si è limitata alla semplice esposizione del reperto: una volta sceso di quota, si è deciso di procedere all’apertura. “La cosa curiosa: il ghiacciaio sembra aver conservato bene la birra nel corso degli anni”, prosegue il resoconto su Instagram. “Un piccolo gruppo di appassionati di birra e curiosi ha spillato e degustato il fusto del 1978 presso Harpf. E, in effetti, nonostante il tempo trascorso, la birra era ancora bevibile”.
Per l’azienda, attiva sul territorio da oltre 140 anni, si è chiuso un cerchio iniziato quasi mezzo secolo prima: “Un’occasione davvero rara ed emozionante, nonché un vero e proprio pezzo di storia della Harpf. Infatti, con ogni probabilità, il fusto proveniva originariamente dai nostri magazzini”.
Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri are betting on long-form.
Kevin Mazur/MG26/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
Instagram is opening its arms to long-form video again.
Adam Mosseri, Instagram's top exec, said longer videos will help the app stay "relevant."
Instagram is testing tools for creators making episodic content. But will it pay for them?
Instagram's top executive, Adam Mosseri, has a plan to keep the platform "culturally relevant" — by making it more like YouTube.
Meta-owned Instagram unveiled an overhaul of long-form video features on Monday, including a test of horizontal videos called "Features." Taken together, the changes make the app feel a lot more like YouTube.
"We want to be the most culturally relevant platform," Mosseri said in an interview with content creators and founders of Press Publish, Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry. "To do that, we just need to show up where people are."
The context: YouTube has become a major hit on TV screens, and there's a growing appetite for Instagram-native shows with recurring episodes.
"Subway Takes," hosted by Kareem Rahma, is a prime example of Instagram's strengths and limits. The show started in 2023 as a short-form interview series and, as it grew, expanded with longer-form cuts on YouTube and the streaming platform Tubi. Instagram, however, is where Rahma's show still has its largest audience of 2.4 million followers.
Instagram doesn't want people to go to YouTube or Tubi to see longer versions of shows like "Subway Takes." That's leaving ad revenue and user engagement on the table. Its new tools are designed to entice creators and viewers to stay on its platform.
Here are Instagram's latest video tools and how creators can use them:
"Features" keep viewers within the Instagram ecosystem. Instead of leaving Instagram to watch the extended version of an interview or episode, it'll be relatively seamless to stay on Instagram and watch that longer-form content. Instagram's "Features" can be as long as 90 minutes, although the new format is, for now, only available to a limited number of creators in the US and Brazil.
Instagram is feeding more content to its TV apps. Instagram is also pushing its "Instagram for TV" app further. The app will feature various video content on TV services like Samsung, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, and now Apple TV. People can now watch a feed of content their friends are also liking or resharing on TV.
Instagram-native shows can label their episodes more clearly with "Series." Within the main Instagram feed, Instagram is testing a way for shows on the app to seamlessly connect episodic content. Eligible creators can add videos to a Series, and a label appears over the content indicating that there are additional episodes. People can then watch those episodes in order from the start. This test is expanding to more countries through the end of the year.
Clips can directly drive engagement back to the original video. Instead of clipping content and praying that the audience will go the extra mile of clicking on an account and finding the original, longer-form video, Instagram is letting creators link up to 8 clips to one long video.
Instagram is expanding its offerings for long-form video content.
Meta
This isn't Instagram's first time dabbling in long-form content.
In 2018, it launched IGTV, a long-form video format and stand-alone app. In 2020, Instagram rolled out a program that let creators earn money from those videos on IGTV. Four years after launching, the company sunset the IGTV app and shifted its video efforts to Reels.
There are a few key elements missing from Instagram's big leap (back) into long-form video.
You can't watch the video while continuing to scroll through Instagram, or multitask by opening other apps while keeping the Instagram content in a picture-in-picture pop-up. There also aren't automated transcripts and subtitles yet. A spokesperson for Meta told Business Insider that there are plans for these features.
Will creators get a slice of the ad revenue pie?
For creators, one key question and pain point looms: Will Meta share the honeypot?
Mosseri told Rosenblum and Chaudry that Instagram is thinking about ways to test pre-roll and mid-roll ads that could lead to a revenue split. However, he said previous attempts by Instagram to build a creator monetization system comparable to YouTube's Partner Program didn't prove beneficial for the platform.
"We spend more money than we make back by a long shot," Mosseri said of Instagram's previous efforts at broad revenue-sharing programs.
Mosseri said that in its previous iterations of content monetization, creators typically didn't produce more content than they already did for free, and the content they did create tended to be lower quality.
Still, Instagram will need to "figure it out" as it tries to crack longer-form content, Mosseri said.
"I don't think of platform payments or performance-based incentives or bonuses as a revenue driver," Mosseri added. "I'd be psyched to scale them up for any of these formats — as long as we're breaking even."
Select creators in the U.S. Monday and will be able to test out the new product, which could make the platform more of a destination for full video podcasts.
2016 was a pivotal year in the 21st century. In June, Britons voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. In November, U.S. voters elected Donald Trump as president, a figure widely regarded as a bad joke by both Democrats and establishment Republicans. Both events marked the beginning of a far-right wave that, a decade later, continues to sweep across much of the world. And both were aided, perhaps decisively, by a small London-based political consultancy: Cambridge Analytica. The company collected data from 87 million Facebook users without their consent and used it to create personalized political propaganda to boost the campaigns for Trump and Brexit, among others.
Asia Argentoha deciso di dire addio ai suoi tatuaggi. Un elemento che a lungo l’ha contraddistinta, ma a cui ora l’attrice vuole rinunciare, come diversi personaggi del mondo dello spettacolo ormai sempre più frequentemente stanno facendo. Già da quattro anni Ema Stokholma, ad esempio, ha iniziato a farsi cancellare i tatuaggi che aveva sul suo corpo e che segnavano profondamente la sua estetica.
La stessa scelta ha ora deciso di compierla Asia Argento, che si è rivolta allo stesso specialista da cui era andata Ema Stokholma. Una prima operazione di rimozione dei tatuaggi la figlia di Dario Argento l’aveva compiuta già nel dicembre 2023, come testimonia un post Instagram. In questi giorni, però, l’attrice è tornata dal professor Gaspare Reina, che sulla propria pagina si definisce come il “killer dei tatuaggi”, per rimuovere ancora altri tatuaggi.
“Volevamo far vedere questa operazione incredibile che sta facendo Gaspare con il mio corpo e la mia vita. Sto togliendo tutti i tatuaggi” ha raccontato Argento in una video pubblicato su Instagram. “Non lo avrei mai detto a 51 anni di desiderare di togliere una cosa che mi ha così caratterizzato. È stato grazie a Gaspare, che ho iniziato, partendo dalle mani stiamo salendo piano piano” ha poi aggiunto.
George Brett Olson (right) said his joke was taken by an AI account (left).
George Brett Olson via Instagram
George Brett Olson is one of a set of comedians who've called out AI accounts for ripping off their work.
Olson said he was upset with Meta for allowing the situation to persist on its platforms.
Instagram's top exec said the platform is invested in promoting original content and would look into the issue.
This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with George Brett Olson, one of several comedians who have lately called out AI accounts for ripping off their jokes. It's been edited for length and clarity. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he would look into what could be done about the issue and that the platform was invested in driving traffic to original content.
I started doing stand-up in 2021 after getting burned out from being a winemaker. I'd been doing live shows, and this joke I made about, ironically, AI stealing jobs went viral. The whole joke was about AI stealing jobs and people still blaming immigrants, which is very silly when the most powerful people were saying, "We're literally coming to take all your jobs."
Then a friend sent me the video of this lady doing the joke. He's like, "AI is for real, for real, stealing your jokes." It was basically me, in my clothes, but it's a 42-inch butt. It's just the pornification of women online. It was very strange.
I'd been doing that joke for a year. I thought of it after working out with my buddy, and we were talking, walking. It takes a lot of work to get a joke stage-ready. It's a lot of repetition, tweaking, driving from place to place to perform. Comedy's not easy. So it's pretty sad to see it happen, especially when the AI comedians who are stealing jokes have more followers than the people they're stealing from.
I asked the account behind the joke if she was real. She said yes. Then I asked, "Did someone help you do this?" And she just left me on read. She also left a comment saying, "Sorry, won't happen again," and removed a bunch of videos.
I've had a bunch of followers try to report it. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, replied and basically said, "Not all AI's bad. We don't know how we're going to stop it, but people shouldn't be able to steal. Seems like we should do something about that."
[This was Mosseri's exact comment: "I don't think it's practical for us to try and ban AI content from the platform. It's gonna be harder and harder to identify, and it's not all bad content (though yes, there is plenty of slop). But we are very invested in trying to drive more traffic to original content creators, and if an AI creator is ripping off content wholesale, it would be good for us to work out what we can do about that. I'm not sure what it would be, but I'll make sure to talk to the team and look into it."]
George Brett Olson is one of several comedians who have lately called out AI accounts for copying their jokes.
Max Brandt
I blame Meta, not the AI
I don't blame someone for stealing. That's just someone trying to make a buck with the tools they have available. We want to hold people responsible that do not have the mechanisms of power because we can't hold an institution accountable.
I feel demoralized more by Meta's response. The language that's coming from all of them is that we're powerless, and this is inevitable, and there's nothing we can do. And it's just not true. And you just have to sit, be powerless, which is demoralizing.
As a comedian, you just want to sell tickets to your shows, engage with live people. That's why most of us post on social media — so people see that you're funny so they come to your live shows. I do live shows every week.
If we flood the internet with agents, and we don't know the difference anymore between what's real and what's not, this could be the death of the internet. Hopefully more people come to live shows. Because the one thing about AI comedians is: You can't see them live.
School of Hard Knocks founders, from left, Jack Dumoulin, James Dumoulin, and Josh Smith, want to be the "Barstool Sports of business."
School of Hard Knocks
James Dumoulin has turned street interviews with moguls into a business on track for $37 million in revenue this year.
School of Hard Knocks uses staged drama to hook viewers and sells consulting services and memberships.
Dumoulin and his partners aim to expand and become the "Barstool Sports of business content."
As James Dumoulin approaches a private equity investor in Lagos, Nigeria, there's an ominous moment when a bodyguard holding a rifle puts his hand up and demands the content creator stop.
"I have a channel with 24 million followers," the School of Hard Knocks cofounder responds, and then asks if he can interview the investor, Adesuwa Rhodes, for one minute about how she got rich.
Rhodes steps forward, dressed in a vibrantly patterned suit, and begins answering Dumoulin's questions, explaining how she broke into the business, the importance of persistence, and her faith in God.
The video's formula — mixing a high-drama street interview with advice from the wealthy and successful — has been distilled down to a science by 24-year-old Dumoulin, and helped him create a company that's on track to do $37 million in revenue this year, profitably, according to copies of financial documents he provided to Business Insider. The initial set-up is also, as Dumoulin readily explains, partly scripted.
"They're screaming at me, and it looks like a war is about to break out, and then I get her to calm them down," he said of how he blocked out the Rhodes scene. "And she gave some incredible sound bites and advice."
Street interviews, which have their predecessors on radio and TV, have been reborn as one of social media's hottest formats. Standout stars of the genre include Kareem Rahma of "Subway Takes," who gets opinions on hot topics from strangers, and TikToker Caleb Simpson, who asks people what they pay in rent and tours their apartments. As the format has grown increasingly lucrative, it's also become more orchestrated. Rahma and Simpson have both leaned into celebrity appearances, for example.
In Dumoulin's case, the upfront drama of the street encounter is contrived, a way to draw the viewer in and hook them so they'll listen to the interview, which is where he says the valuable information actually resides. He asks his subjects how they made their money, what their leadership principles are, and for advice for future entrepreneurs. The conceit is that they're lessons not taught in school.
"People love tension," Dumoulin said. "They want to see that conflict, they want to see what's going to happen, and then the payoff is a great interview on the back half. That's why I think our videos do really, really well."
Dumoulin's success in the creator economy — where the term "authenticity" is employed like a sacred totem — raises a host of questions about what it means to be "real," and how much it truly matters if you're entertaining and informing your audience. Any questions of authenticity haven't seemed to hamper the growth of School of Hard Knocks, though, which has nearly 11 million Instagram followers and over 7 million on TikTok, plus several million more on YouTube and other platforms.
Dumoulin said he'd consider a video a failure if it got under a million views.
The 'Barstool Sports of business content'
The videos serve as the center of an operation — run by Dumoulin, his brother Jack, 26, and their childhood friend Josh Smith, 28 — that contains a slew of businesses. The partners say they expect their media revenue to double over the next six months.
"One of the long-term visions of the School of Hard Knocks is to create the Barstool Sports of business content," James Dumoulin said.
The team poses with Tom Cruise, one of several celebrities they've interviewed.
School of Hard Knocks
The brand has done long-term sponsorships with companies including Shopify, ZipRecruiter, and Alibaba, but advertising isn't the most lucrative part of the business. The core moneymaker is School of Content, which provides social media consulting to small businesses.
The other two contributors are Hard Knocks Agency, a short-form video production and social media management agency for business owners, and School of Mentors, a membership community for aspiring entrepreneurs. Members pay $19 or $49 a month for live calls, workshops, and training with founders and operators.
Jack Dumoulin said the subscribers to its Mentors community are people who want to connect with successful entrepreneurs and learn from them, while the agency's clients are established businesspeople who want to build their personal or company brands.
"Founder-led brands are becoming a really, really big thing, where we're seeing more and more founders become the face of brands, their product, their service, or their company," Jack Dumoulin said.
Monica Khan, CEO of Creator Revolution, which helps creators build businesses and advises companies on influencer strategy, said she sees strong demand from execs and founders for help building personal brands, and business-to-business (B2B) creators are stepping up.
School of Hard Knocks took a smart approach by building a media brand first by interviewing entrepreneurs, then turning that credibility into a service, Khan said.
"We're going to see a lot more of that," she added.
The School of Hard Knocks cofounders have also invested in real estate, including a portion of an apartment complex in San Antonio and commercial properties.
The founders went through several pivots
The Dumoulin brothers grew up in a military family in Northern Virginia and became friends with Smith while serving in the same Boy Scouts troop. All went on to become Eagle Scouts.
James Dumoulin attributes some of their success to the mentoring they got from the military dads who ran the troop. He recalled the especially long conferences they'd have with scout leaders evaluating them for advancement to the next rank, and the scoutmaster who used to say, "There's never enough time to do it right, but there's always enough time to do it again."
"That resonated with us," he said.
Mark Cuban gave School of Hard Knocks its first big break.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News via Getty Images
The three reconnected in Austin in 2020. Josh Smith had gotten into digital marketing, and Jack Dumoulin, who had won a trophy in a worldwide Microsoft Excel competition, had become a junior analyst at Buc-ee's. James Dumoulin was in college, making TikTok videos. They combined their skills to make online content.
School of Hard Knocks was by no means an overnight success. They experimented with several approaches, including giving their own business advice. People didn't care about a 20-year-old kid's perspective on business, James Dumoulin said.
"Ultimately, we were like, 'What if we tried doing interviews?'" he said. "'What if we were the ones that were able to go seek advice from the most successful people?'"
They started approaching people cold on the street, asking them for interviews, and more often than not, getting blown off.
"It was just constant rejection after rejection," James Dumoulin said. "You'd probably have to go to 100 people before you get anybody to even look at you in the eye."
Their big break came in 2022 when they intercepted Mark Cuban outside the South by Southwest festival and asked for an interview. The gregarious entrepreneur obliged.
"That one interview was so powerful for us, because I leveraged it in so many other interviews," James Dumoulin said.
Eventually, PR agents were calling them to have their clients be featured on the channel.
The videos are carefully planned
School of Hard Knocks videos have a spontaneous feel that belies the meticulous planning behind them.
They start with a cold open, often creating tension by involving a security guard or other bystanders. For an interview with Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, James Dumoulin roped in a few employees from a store on Rodeo Drive where he met Siminoff and asked them to stand in a group, chatting. Dumoulin asked the group who the richest of them was. As briefed, they pointed to Siminoff, who said he was an inventor who made "something on your front door."
James Dumoulin reshoots the opening several times until he's satisfied with the result. The rest of the interview is shot in one take. He approaches his subjects with hearty enthusiasm and said he does minimal research on them, to preserve a certain amount of natural surprise in his reactions. All told, he takes five to seven hours to edit videos that are between a minute and a half and two minutes long.
"He's got unbelievable guests," said Josh Suggs, founder of StreetTalk, an ad agency built around impromptu street interviews. "He has real A-list celebrities. So I think people naturally want to hear what an A-list celebrity is going to say. At the same time, he asks a question people want to hear: How much money do you make? It's very scroll-stopping questions."
Some subjects — like Shaq and Tom Cruise — are household names. Most are not. James Dumoulin said the best-performing videos are unknown moguls because they create a curiosity gap.
He doesn't press his guests on controversial topics. Convicted felon "Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort and streamer Adin Ross, who has hosted far-right creator Nick Fuentes and self-described misogynist influencer Andrew Tate on his stream, get the same treatment as everyone else.
A platform reality check
The cofounders said that when their content started to take off, around 2022, they got a reality check about dependence on platforms.
They said their content was making about $30,000 a month, mostly from Facebook, when they were unexpectedly demonetized by the platform for what James Dumoulin said was an "unoriginal content violation." (They've since been reinstated.) Their monthly revenue dropped to $5,000. They said it was a wake-up call that they had to find other, more predictable sources of income. They started their first offshoot, the Hard Knocks Agency, in 2023.
"Sometimes you're not in control, because you don't own the platform," James Dumoulin said. "It made us realize, 'We've got to create a media company.'"
The School of Hard Knocks founders are also aware of the risk they run of being dependent on a single person. That's why they're adding new brands like Hard Knocks Business and Hard Knocks Women, with Hard Knocks Sports to come. The goal is to get to eight channels by the end of the year.
"If it is all really relying on one person, if something happens to that person, the whole company's kind of screwed," James Dumoulin said. "And so I think that's why it is very, very important to have that distribution beyond just one channel."
Plaintiffs in class action suit demand social media giant pay over $1 billion, saying Facebook, Instagram served as 'inseparable part of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure'
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