James Hale

• MrBeast, Salish Matter, Anthony Padilla, and Ian Hecox soar into ‘Angry Birds 3’
• Fortnite challenges Roblox with in-game item sales, zero revenue split through 2027

  Fortnite is coming out swinging: As part of this item-sales debut, it's dropping the cut it takes of developers' sales (all sales, not just item sales) from 50% to 0% through the end of 2026, letting them earn more cash from their creations.

  
• Disney fined $10 million for failing to label YouTube videos as “made for kids”

  Like YouTube's, Disney's FTC settlement comes with more than a multimillion-dollar payment as penalty. Per the terms, it's required to form an Audience Designation Program that will manually review each video it publishes to YouTube and apply a 'made for kids' or 'not made for kids' label. That means no more channel-wide labeling.

  
• Digital platforms are introducing new age verification systems to keep kids safer online. Lawmakers are taking it even further.

  The latest age verification law comes out of New York, where Attorney General Letitia James recently unveiled proposed rules for the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) For Kids Act.

  
• YouTube’s major livestreaming revamp: Ads that don’t stop streams, simultaneous horizontal/vertical broadcasts, and more
• Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Money money money
• A cow at Maya Higa’s animal sanctuary is bullying stream viewers for treats, and they love it
• Inside Salish Matter’s sold-out (and shut down) Sephora launch
• Reddit is revamping its metrics to emphasize content creation (with a hat tip for lurkers)
• Roblox is entering its TikTok era
• “Creators shouldn’t just be influencers-for-hire”: Meet the new talent company pairing entrepreneurial creators with startup founders
• Top 5 Branded Videos of the Week: Nukes, F1, seed wars, horse girls