YouTube, Instagram, SoundCloud, and other online platforms are changing the way people create and consume media. The Verge’s Creators section covers the people using these platforms, what they’re making, and how those platforms are changing (for better and worse) in response to the vloggers, influencers, podcasters, photographers, musicians, educators, designers, and more who are using them.
The Verge’s Creators section also looks at the way creators are able to turn their projects into careers — from Patreons and merch sales, to ads and Kickstarters — and the ways they’re forced to adapt to changing circumstances as platforms crack down on bad actors and respond to pressure from users and advertisers. New platforms are constantly emerging, and existing ones are ever-changing — what creators have to do to succeed is always going to look different from one year to the next.
The old sport is going all-in on chasing virality.
A year ago James Bruton demonstrated a custom self-balancing bike that rolled around on a pair of big red inflatable balls. For 2026 he’s both simplified the bike by reducing it to just a single ball, while also further complicating the build by creating his own custom omni-wheels for more precision and control.
Instead of a suspension completely stopping you from accessing any part of Twitch, which has historically been the case, users will now only lose access to specific features for minor infractions. To start, there will be streaming suspensions and chatting suspensions.
It’s harder to clean up a mess you’re still actively making.
The former Complexly owner lets loose on YouTube, AI, and why he turned his educational company into a nonprofit.
The roughly $1.2 billion deal, expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, gives eBay a social, creator-driven secondhand fashion marketplace popular with Gen Z and younger millennials. The platform feels more like scrolling Instagram outfits than browsing listings, which could help modernize eBay’s image.
A partial YouTube outage knocked out access to Google’s video service on Tuesday night.
The outage appears to have started just before 8PM ET, but at least on the homepage, it appears to be resolved now. A note on YouTube’s support page says it went down due to problems with the recommendations system. “The issue with our recommendations system has been resolved and all of our platforms (YouTube.com, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, Kids, and TV) are back to normal!
Update: The service is back online.
This project from Florida-based artist Gwak needs to make that horrid beep/buzzing noise when the phone rings for authenticity, but the yellowing and half-peeled sticker is -chef’s kiss-.
A new Sensor Tower report suggests the USDS takeover managed to retain most of its users despite a bumpy start and concerns with the new owners:
The average number of TikTok’s daily active users in the US remains around 95% of its usership compared to the week of Jan. 19-25.
Kamala Harris’ campaign account, @KamalaHQ, has rebranded as a digital rapid response operation.
Redfin is doing a geoguessing-themed game of skill to give away a million-dollar house in its app, based on clues found in its Super Bowl ad, and Rainbolt is part of the promo — but he’s not allowed to help, based on the rules here.
Meanwhile, Salesforce’s Mr. Beast ad promises a million-dollar giveaway based on the clues in its 30-second ad.
Why you can’t label your way into consensus reality amid the AI deepfake apocalypse.
We can confirm that basic features in the US do seem to work reliably now on the new Trump-friendly entity’s servers, even if the algorithm still seems a little wonky at times. Per TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC:
We have successfully restored TikTok back to normal after a significant outage caused by winter weather took down a primary US data center site operated by Oracle. The winter storm led to a power outage which caused network and storage issues at the site and impacted tens of thousands of servers that help keep TikTok running in the US.
Great, but how many of ya’ll have abandoned the platform?
Nick Shirley and others like him are reminiscent of yellow journalism of the 19th century, updated and turbocharged by social media algorithms.
Without explaining why its cloud status page doesn’t list any outages, TikTok USDS part-owner Oracle outed itself as the previously unnamed “US data center partner” that experienced a power outage over the weekend, blocking videos from publishing and unraveling its all-important algorithm for a few days.
Michael Egbert, Oracle Spokesperson:
Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok. The challenges U.S. TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve.
It follows Snap in reaching an agreement to resolve the first of several cases slated to go to trial this year about social media’s alleged harm to users, an attorney for the 19-year-old plaintiff confirmed. That leaves Meta and YouTube as defendants in the case going to jury selection today.
TikTok’s US service crashed early Sunday morning, and as of late Monday night, it still hasn’t fully recovered.
After finally announcing the problem started with a power outage at an unnamed partner’s data center, TikTok USDS followed up with an updated statement saying, “While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve together with our data center partner,” and listing some of the bugs users are experiencing. There’s still no ETA for a full fix.
