YOUTUBE HITS MILESTONE, COMPETITORS WANT IN
YouTube TV is thriving, and its rivals want a piece of the action. Recently, media ratings giant Nielsen confirmed that YouTube is now not only the most-watched streaming service in the United States, but also the most-watched platform overall, outpacing every traditional broadcast and cable network in total watch time.
That’s a milestone YouTube has been chasing for years. It reflects the company’s aggressive push into the living room, a strategy that has reportedly irked competitors. But the numbers don’t lie: YouTube’s big-screen dominance is real.
Now, Meta and ByteDance are planning to challenge that dominance. According to reporting by Kaya Yurieff and Kalley Huang from The Information, both companies are developing TV apps aimed at replicating YouTube’s success. In Meta’s case, the app would center on Reels. This is unsurprising given the company’s recent move to turn all Facebook videos into Reels as part of its platform unification strategy.
As for TikTok, it has spent the last six months rethinking its approach to TV and is reportedly aiming for higher production values and more polished content, designed specifically to appeal to older viewers. This is a shift from TikTok’s endless-scroll aesthetic, which might not translate naturally to the big screen.
While TikTok technically launched a TV app in November 2021, it saw little promotion and was quietly withdrawn last month. The new effort suggests a more focused attempt. Speaking at Cannes Lions on June 19, TikTok executive David Kaufman acknowledged that “the living room is definitely a new frontier for us that we’re taking very seriously.”
But serious or not, the challenge is steep. Even traditional streaming giants with massive budgets and entire business models built around TV viewing have struggled to keep up with YouTube’s momentum. If Meta and TikTok want to compete in the living room, they may need to deliver more than just vertical videos on a horizontal screen.
FOREIGN STUDENTS ENTERING THE U.S. MUST ALLOW SOCIAL MEDIA ACCESS
The U.S. State Department now requires applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas, including students, vocational trainees, and exchange visitors, to provide access to their social media accounts as part of an expanded vetting process. Applicants must adjust their privacy settings to allow consular officers to view their online activity, which will be reviewed for indicators of hostility toward the United States, support for terrorism, or antisemitic harassment. The change follows a temporary pause in visa interviews that began May 27 while the department finalized the new guidance.
“It is an expectation from American citizens that their government will make every effort to make our country safer,” said a senior State Department official. The official also credited Secretary of State Marco Rubio with helping modernize the department’s approach to national security.
But critics say the policy blurs the line between security and censorship. Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, warned: “This policy makes a censor of every consular officer, and it will inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States.”
BLACK MIRROR: CONGRESSIONAL EDITION
When voters in Virginia’s 11th District logged onto social media ahead of the district’s Democratic primary last month, they were met with a political message from beyond the grave. The official X and Facebook accounts of the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) appeared to spring back to life, encouraging followers to support his former chief of staff and handpicked successor, James Walkinshaw.
“Early voting starts TODAY in VA-11,” the posts declared, alongside a photo of Connolly and Walkinshaw and a direct link to the latter’s campaign website.
While jarring to some, the posts weren’t exactly a surprise to those watching the race closely. Connolly, who passed away in May, endorsed Walkinshaw before his death. His campaign amplified that support through traditional means in addition to the somewhat surreal posthumous social posts.
And it worked. Walkinshaw won easily with nearly 60% of the vote. He’ll face Republican nominee Stewart Whitson in the September 9 general election.
Connolly’s social media resurrection wasn’t an isolated case, or even the first time in 2025 that such a digital séance took place. Earlier this year, the X account of deceased Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner started following other lawmakers and journalists weeks after his death, adding an eerie twist to the already bizarre intersection of grief and digital campaigning.
Laws vary by state, but few offer clear rules on what happens to a social media account after someone dies. Most states have adopted the 2020 Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which lets executors request access to a deceased person’s digital assets, but that doesn’t mean platforms have to say yes. Terms of service often ban account sharing or impersonation, and those usually take precedence unless the user set specific permissions beforehand. In Connolly’s case, he presumably gave Walkinshaw’s team the go-ahead, so there’s not much controversy. It gets trickier when an everyday family member wants to keep a loved one’s account active and finds out the law may allow it, but the platform won’t. This certainly has a few estate attorneys sharpening their proverbial pencils.
When the afterlife needs a content strategy, we’re officially living in a Black Mirror episode.
MINNESOTA MENTAL HEALTH LAW
On June 14, Minnesota passed a landmark law that could reshape how Americans engage with social media. HF2 was signed by Governor Tim Walz, making Minnesota the first state in the U.S. to require social media platforms to display mental health warning labels to users. Barring any successful legal challenges, it will take effect on July 1, 2026.
The law mandates that each time a user opens a covered social media platform, a “conspicuous mental health warning” must appear and remain on screen until the user either exits the platform or actively acknowledges the warning. The notice must also include links to mental health resources, such as the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Burying the warning in terms of service or allowing users to permanently disable it is prohibited.
Minnesota’s definition of a “social media platform” is broad, encompassing any interactive site or app where users share and consume content primarily for social interaction. Exceptions are carved out for email, cloud storage, internet service providers, telecom companies, and certain streaming, gaming, and e-commerce platforms. Business-use-only messaging tools are also excluded. A less-reported provision of the new law also requires platforms to notify users with a timed alert after every 30 minutes of use.
Enforcement authority is given to the Minnesota Attorney General, while the Commissioners of Health and Commerce are tasked with developing and updating the warning content based on current research. The goal, according to supporters, is to mirror tobacco-style warning labels, making risks visible, undeniable, and hard to ignore.
This bill didn’t emerge in a vacuum. Several other states (including Utah, Georgia, New York, and Texas) are considering similar measures, and Colorado’s legislature passed a comparable bill earlier this year, only for it to be vetoed.
Supporters frame Minnesota’s law as a public health necessity in the face of rising teen depression and anxiety linked to screen time. Critics, however, are already signaling potential First Amendment challenges, arguing that mandatory speech imposed on private platforms may not survive legal scrutiny.
Call it a win for mental health advocates and a windfall for white-shoe litigators.
TEXAS PORNOGRAPHY LAW UPHELD BY SUPREME COURT
As your favorite blog covered in-depth earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify users’ ages. The ruling affirms the state’s authority to demand ID at the digital door, despite concerns from civil liberties groups and the adult entertainment industry.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said the law falls squarely within Texas’s power to protect minors. The court rejected arguments that the requirement violates adults’ First Amendment rights by forcing them to hand over personal identification online.
The challenge was brought by the Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing the adult industry. They argued the law could deter adults from viewing legal content out of fear their private information might be exposed. They also took aim at what they see as a major inconsistency. The law doesn’t apply to search engines or social media platforms, even though both can host sexually explicit material.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the law as a necessary response to what he called a public health crisis. He pointed to the 1968 Ginsberg v. New York decision that allowed states to keep pornographic magazines out of kids’ hands, asserting that the Texas law is a modern extension of that same logic.
Since 2023, 24 states have passed similar age-verification laws. The Texas law has already had an impact, with sites like Pornhub pulling out of the state altogether.
The Supreme Court had previously declined to pause the law while litigation played out, signaling early on that a majority of justices saw no constitutional roadblocks. With nearly half the statehouses around the country backing this type of age-gating legislation, could a comprehensive federal law be on the horizon?
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