The biggest social media news over the past week came from courtrooms and statehouses, not product launches. Two age-verification fights went opposite directions, and the platforms themselves mostly shipped small housekeeping. Few headline features shipped, so the items below run from late June through this week.

age verification keeps landing in court

A federal judge blocked Nebraska’s social media age-verification law days before it was set to take effect. Senior U.S. District Judge John Gerrard granted a preliminary injunction on June 28, halting the parts of the Parental Rights in Social Media Act that would have required age checks and parental consent to open an account.1 He wrote that creating an account is protected First Amendment activity and that the law was not tailored to the problem it named.1 One provision survived, giving parents dashboard access to monitor their kids’ accounts.1 The injunction is preliminary, so the case is not settled, but the account-creation checks are on hold for now.1

Missouri went the other way. Governor Kehoe signed House Bill 1839 on July 9.2 It requires third-party age verification on sites where more than a third of the content is sexually explicit, and it bars those verifiers from keeping identifying data.2 The law takes effect August 28, with penalties of $10,000 a day for sites that ignore it.2 This is the adult-content style of age check, aimed at explicit sites rather than a blanket social media ban.2 The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s deputy legal director called it an onerous mandate that blocks adults from lawful speech and puts their data at risk.2

For brand accounts, the rules now depend on which state a user opens the app in, and that patchwork is still being written one court at a time.

the ad tools got an ai layer

LinkedIn added five AI tools to Campaign Manager on July 1, aimed at smaller advertisers.3 They cover a Brand Kit for locking in colors, fonts, and tone, a “Draft with AI” copy generator that works from a product URL, ads personalization by job title and industry, automatic ad variants, and a flexible builder that recombines images, video, and copy.3 LinkedIn says campaigns running five or more variants see more than 20 percent higher click-through rates, though that number comes from its own data.3

creator pay took a cut

TikTok Shop lowered its affiliate commission caps on June 22, with no phase-in.4 Creator payouts on affected categories fell from around 20 percent to 10 to 15 percent, and beauty, supplements, and home goods took the deepest cuts.4 The change landed as TikTok Shop’s U.S. sales hit a reported $32 billion run rate for the quarter.4

platforms did some housekeeping

YouTube reworked how feedback on Shorts works. The like button became a heart, the dislike button was pulled out of the main view with “not interested” and “don’t recommend this channel” moved into a menu, and dislike counts stopped updating for Shorts at the end of June.5 The same update added a clear-screen view and a hold-to-play 2x speed, bringing Shorts closer to how Reels and TikTok already behave.5

Instagram built Stories formats for Meta’s smart glasses, including multi-cam capture and a “spin view,” plus editing tools like Audio, Expand, and Speed.6 Threads started rolling out “private likes,” a toggle that hides what you liked from everyone except you and the post’s author.7

The platform changes are small. The regulation is the part worth watching this week, especially if you sell to teens or run adult content.

lucette schedules your social posts in seconds, no bloat. The feed stays handled while the rules get sorted out.

  1. Federal judge blocks Nebraska’s social media age verification law from going into effect in July ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. Kehoe signs online age verification rule into law, critics call it ‘speech-chilling’ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. LinkedIn advertisers gain 20% higher CTR with 5-plus ad variants ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. TikTok Shop slashes affiliate commissions across top categories ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. YouTube updates reaction options for Shorts ↩ ↩2

  6. Meta adds custom Instagram Stories features for glasses ↩

  7. You can now toggle on “Private likes” on Threads ↩