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The Australian Parliament on Wednesday grilled two top executives of Meta from Facebook and Instagram. The executives were summoned by the parliament for a hearing involving ongoing probe of news practices on the social media networks. 

According to The Australian, Antigone Davis, Meta’s global head of safety at Meta, and Mia Garlick, a regional director of policy for Australia, were summoned back to parliament after attending a hearing in June.

Their appearance follows a June hearing where Garlick avoided confirming whether Facebook would ban news in Australia, stating, “all options are on the table.” This comes after Meta announced it would not renew deals under the News Media Bargaining Code, which requires the company to pay publishers for news content on the platform.
 
According to reports by The Australian newspaper, Sharon Claydon, the new chair of the social media committee, said she intends to probe Meta on the claims made during the previous hearing.

“Australians are increasingly concerned about the influence and impact of social media on so many areas of our society, including our mental health, wellbeing, safety, and social cohesion,” said the Labour MP. Claydon also expressed interest in clarifying Meta's decision to halt its agreements with Australian news outlets.

This follows Meta's announcement in June 2024 that it is considering blocking news content in Australia if the government forces the platform to pay licensing fees. Meta has previously struck deals with major Australian media outlets, including News Corp and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but has indicated it will not renew these arrangements beyond 2024.

Publishers say such a move would be “catastrophic”. One claimed it would lose 52 percent of its income if the ban went ahead.

According to media reports, Garlick said, “We haven’t had any indication about which way things are progressing and so there’s nothing further to update.” She also confirmed that Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had not yet met with anyone from the Australian government.

Garlick and Davis were also questioned over child safety on the company’s apps. Davis said the country should enforce laws that require parents to approve downloading of the Facebook and Instagram apps by children under 16 in their care.

Davis’ answer did not impress Member of Parliament Zoe Daniels, who said Meta was “shirking responsibility.”

“So you will support some level of age assurance or age verification, as long as you don’t have to do it yourselves,” she added.

Australian Parliament grills top Meta executives over digital news policy

Lately, one-second reels and content around sports, especially cricket on Meta's social media platforms have been gaining significant traction, with many creators adopting these trends. On Thursday, Meta launched its Creator Lab in India, an educational content series featuring popular Instagram creators from India. The series will be available in English and Hindi, with captions in five additional languages.

In addition, Instagram has introduced new features such as comments in stories, birthday notes, and cutouts in DMs. Paras Sharma, Director of Global Partnerships for India at Meta, spoke to Storyboard18 about content trends in India. He also discussed how the Gen Z audience is adapting to newer trends like one-second reels and sports content on the platform.

Talking about trends on Instagram, Sharma said, “I think there are a couple of ways to look at it. There are momentary trends that are very specific in nature, and then there are longer-term behavioral changes in content creation and user engagement. We are also noticing experimental content on the platform, which is largely created and consumed by Gen Z creators and audiences.”

He added, “We mainly pick up signals from Gen Zs because they are the biggest experimenters. They are the fastest to adopt something new and also the quickest to pivot to something else depending on technological changes.”

When asked about Meta’s investment in sports properties, Sharma said, “There are two aspects: global events and India-specific events. For example, the ICC has its cricket calendar for India, so these events aren't hosted by Meta. Similarly, a movie release is part of the broader ecosystem.”

Sharma said, “So, if there's a cricket tournament that's part of the Indian cricket calendar, like the Indian Premier League, there are different stakeholders involved, including our partners, whether it's a broadcaster like Star Sports or other networks. Likewise, we work closely with teams or franchises like Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. We also engage with former cricketers, athletes, and commentators on an ongoing basis during these tournaments, creating meaningful collaboration opportunities for creators, something we have been doing for years.”

During these events, we bring creators on board to produce content, demonstrating our continued investment and commitment to events on the calendar. He added.

When asked if content related to cricket is increasing on Meta platforms, Sharma said, “Cricket is the largest sport in India. Internationally, we work closely with the ICC, and in India, we collaborate with the BCCI and broadcasters like JioCinema and Hotstar.”

Expanding on sports content on Meta platforms, Sharma said, “When we look at our own study on Gen Z and sports fandom in India, cricket is the biggest, followed by badminton, even before the Olympics. We are also seeing highly passionate communities for football and Formula 1.”

When asked if the duration of content creation on Meta platforms has decreased, Sharma said, “There’s a format trend right now, and one-second content is part of that trend. But the real cause behind it is the behavior of the audience. There is a need to reduce the pressure of content creation. Creators don’t want to spend too much time and prefer to show their real selves, making their content more conversational on Instagram.”

Sharma explained, “This is about everyday creativity that isn't polished but is instead a quick reflection of this generation's desire to create a conversational, quirky piece—whether it's an audio clip, a physical movement, or a visual element.”

He further noted, “We're seeing more and more creators emerging from tier two and tier three towns, and that trend is here to stay. This is a moment-in-time trend, using Meta-AI, and India is the largest country for the use of Meta-AI. The reason why this one-second reel format is gaining traction on Instagram is that a huge number of people are engaging with it, and we have seen some amazing content come out of it.”

Cricket content, one-sec reels booming on our platforms in India: Meta

India has always been an important market for Meta. Now, in a bid to strengthen advertiser relations in the country, Meta has launched a no-cost EMI scheme.

Advertisers will now be able to pay the platform over a period of three months through participating banks. Meta will bear the applicable interest payable to the bank, and give it as an upfront discount to the business on its ad spends. 

Working capital access is a concern for many new and growing businesses in the country. With No Cost EMI billing, they can choose any amount between Rs 3,200 and Rs 5,00,000 to convert to EMIs.

Interestingly, India is the first market where Meta has launched the No Cost EMI scheme. 

Over the last three years, the Internet giant has been working to enable easier access to timely credit. It started in 2020, where as a part of their USD 100 million global grant for small businesses, grants were announced for small businesses across five cities in India. 

The following year a Small Business Loans Initiative was also launched to enable business loans for Meta’s small business advertisers through third-party lending platforms. This too was an India-first initiative within Meta.

This program has now expanded to 19000+ pin codes across India, which is almost the entire length and breadth of the country. This means that Meta advertisers from even the smallest towns and villages can now apply for collateral-free business loans from as little as Rs 30,000 to as much as Rs 1 crore.

The last few years have seen the boom of small businesses that have taken to digital platforms for all their marketing communication activities. 

At the annual Grow Your Business Summit where Meta announced the no cost EMI scheme, they also announced a 24 x 7 chat support for all their advertisers in India. This service can be accessed through the ‘support’ option on the Meta Business Help Center.

According to Ajit Mohan, VP and MD (Facebook India) Meta, with these initiatives, every advertiser on Meta in India, irrespective of their ad spends, will have access to financial and service support, at the click of a button to unlock new growth opportunities.

“We know that each business is on a distinct journey, and we are committed to building India-focused solutions keeping in mind their unique needs. We hope that the initiatives that we have announced during Grow Your Business Summit will help small businesses achieve their business goals with greater flexibility and ease,” he said.

India is the first country where Meta launched a No Cost EMI for advertisers

Last week, my digital vastu aligned with my online grahan to create a perfect viral storm. I made two viral tweets in a gap of five days. Between the two tweets, I got about 270k impressions, 4000 likes, and 350 retweets. As a result of which, I added a grand total of 20 followers. Yes, twenty. 

This was heartbreaking and fascinating on so many levels. A year ago, if I did these kinds of numbers, I would add at least about 500-700 new followers. I don’t know what changed. The algorithm. The user behavior. Or both.

As the number of social media platforms grows, retaining users becomes a big issue. And users are harmfully spoiled for choice. Harmful because the platforms are built in such a way to ensure we don’t get bored even for a second. It’s like having a dopamine dealer on speed dial to ensure we never run out of stuff in this digital rave party. As a result of which our attention spans have begun nosediving all the way to the bottom.

Earlier, our Twitter feed was filled only with people whom we followed. We just saw their thoughts and tweets all day. But there was a slight issue: the limited set of creators/friends/influencers we followed couldn't be remarkable daily. So the overall content quality of the feed was just about alright. 

We didn’t feel this was a big issue because, during those good old days in the early 2020s, we had larger attention spans. That ensured we didn't get bored easily. We had the patience to look through our feed, and also a penchant for discovering and following new accounts when we came across interesting retweets.

But all that changed somewhere in the last couple of years. One, the algorithm has learnt a lot more about us through our data footprint and can target content that will keep us hooked far more effectively. And second, increased exposure to reels and short format videos have made us more impatient and less tolerant towards content that immediately doesn’t give us that dopamine hit. Short format video platforms are designed in a way to get their users surprised every few seconds. The videos change every few seconds.

The algorithm serves you different genres of content back to back, again ensuring you don’t get bored. You go from BeerBiceps asking you to not fap and meditate to Warren Buffet’s investment advice to Ronaldo’s best freekicks to Urfi Javed’s latest costume to chicken leg piss in less than two minutes. 



<blockquote>"The casino always takes home more than the players. The gatekeeper is winning, not the creator."</blockquote>



So much new information and surprises are offered to us at breakneck speed. It’s a black hole of mindless entertainment that we cannot get out of. And now suddenly, if we don't get that hook every few seconds, we tend to get bored. Since our time and attention isn’t unlimited, Twitter has found itself competing with these short format apps for screen time; and as a text platform, to hold your own against these video platforms can be quite a task. So well, they had to change in order to keep up with the TikTokers.
 
The Twitter algorithm has now pivoted our feed to what I call, 'The Best Of' format. Essentially, we get served the best tweets around our areas of interest regardless of whether we follow those profiles or not. The platform knows that our dwindling attention span has no patience for discovery and we are building resistance to dopamine inducing content. 

So now, when we see a good tweet, we are not excited by it enough. Because the tweet quality of our feed has gone up since we are being served only the best. Since the best is coming at us, why take the trouble of following? We are now trusting the curation of the platform to a higher degree than our own gut and intuition. This makes it harder for creators to build a following even if they are consistently good.

Creator life will only become tougher because the platforms don’t want you to own your audience. They don’t want your follower count to go up and they don’t want to guarantee you the engagement. Simply because the booming influencer economy business is not filling their pockets, adding to their revenue, or increasing the platform’s profits. 

The platforms want to retain viewers using your content but not give you the audience in return. Once they clip the influencer wings, they will encourage brands to invest that money in ads and performance marketing within the platform, directly benefiting the platform.

I’m not saying the influencer business is shutting down, I’m just doubting if it will be as lucrative because you are competing with the platform for a share of the cash. The creator economy dreamland is not as easy as most of us have envisaged. You have the biggest stage in the world if your content is working, but immediately the stage disappears if the next piece of content is not the best. 

You are continuously auditioning. In the long run, the casino always takes home more than the players. The gatekeeper is winning, not the creator.

Devaiah Bopanna is a founding member of SuperteamDAO. Views are personal.

View: The battle of Man versus Algorithm

Former Unilever marketing executive Shashank Mehta founded The Whole Truth in 2019 to offer healthier alternatives to packaged foods. Mehta has been changing the way food products are marketed and advertised too. Keeping content at the core of The Whole Truth’s marketing strategy, Mehta appears in all of the brand's commercials. He tells Storyboard18 that no one else can speak about his brand mission with more conviction than him.

Recently, The Whole Truth roped in comedian Rohan Joshi to create a series of videos. In the “educational mini-series”, Joshi plays the role of ‘Healthy Food’ and Mehta plays ‘The Whole Truth’, and they go on to have a conversation that highlights the “hidden chemicals” in packaged foods. In another episode, we see the many ways food is made to look irresistible in ads. For instance, the milk in the cereal bowl is actually glue and the golden honey drizzled on pancakes in ads and in product photos is engine oil.

In a previous interview Mehta had told Storyboard18 that when he creates and features in content for his brand, he thinks “consumers can feel the honesty.” They see through paid endorsements like influencer or celebrity-laden ads, which are often forced, Mehta believes.

Keeping with the brand's philosophy of always speaking the truth and nothing but the truth, Mehta took to social media this week to announce that the brand will be taking a break from Instagram.

Mehta and his team weren’t thrilled with the content they were putting out. Dancing to trending music and pointing to corners of the screen with cluttered text boxes didn’t seem right. “Everyone could feel the shift in the energy,” says Mehta candidly.

In a freewheeling chat with Storyboard18, Mehta opens about why his brand decided to go on an Instagram break; the risks involved in this move, lessons from Unilever; featuring in his own brand's commercials and more.

Edited excerpts. 

At a time when every brand wants to be on the top of their Instagram game, The Whole Truth decided to log off and take a break. What led to this decision?

The purpose of our content, across platforms, is deeply focused on educating consumers about food and fitness. Both these topics are complex. Honestly, listicles or one-liners don’t work for a brand like ours. We bring in nuances in the content we write by adding expert opinions and research-led information. We almost look at packaging our copies like journalistic pieces that will answer questions that consumers are constantly looking for. This approach worked for us and we want to continue to do so.

Two and half years ago, when we got on to Instagram it worked for us well. Contrary to popular belief the long captions we wrote that sometimes also continued into the comment section got a lot of traction. It reached users, they liked interacting, and it helped us grow our follower base too.

Soon Instagram started changing its algorithm. It indicated that it’s time to move on from photos and get on to Stories. When that was catching up IGTV was pushed heavily, when brands like ours were exploring, Reels were launched, and now it’s all about it.

So what's the issue?

This was leading to two problems. One with algorithms changing every few months, it was becoming different for my team, which is a lean one, to do justice to the purpose of our content. It was taking us away from why we do what we do.

Two, 

<blockquote>the secular trends in the algorithm shift are that content is moving from long-form to short-form; from deep to shallow; and from attracting higher attention span to lower attention span.</blockquote>

 This is not well suited to what we aim to do. It was difficult to introspect this when we were in the middle of the game.

There was an unsaid pressure of producing a Reel and post every day. We realised if we have to get this right we need to step back, take a break, and disconnect for a bit. We were starting to get confused that the medium is the primary thing rather than the message. I think if we continue to craft the content we have been doing, we will find the right medium for it soon.

Have you factored in the risk involved with this move?

I agree that there is a risk. However, when we sat down to reevaluate things for us, we realised consumers love our explainer format content pieces. They see value in it. If we would have tried fitting our content in shorter formats even further, our users would have noticed, and that would have affected our growth on Instagram. These changes are visible slowly.

I think we will have enough time to explore formats like blogs, newsletters and even create a content hub on our website, where people will find us. Once you chase follower count and engagement you may end up being a brand that’s completely different. That traction will lead to the discovery of a brand that may be not the real you.

Now that Instagram is out of your media mix, how are you re-defining your marketing strategy?

We don’t have an answer to this yet. It’s an introspective journey for us at the moment. The one thing we are clear about is that we are done with changing what we do to find favour with any platform. We will continue to do in-depth content pieces and alongside look for mediums that fit well for us.

From a product point of view, what’s the focus area for The Whole Truth?

Food brands have been selling half-truths for ages. We are here to change that up. We plan to take one food category after the other and apply three filters to it. Think of it like a venn diagram. One, are the current incumbents selling half-truths and bad products to the consumers? That’s how we shortlist a category. Two, can we create a product that’s in line with our brand philosophy? From getting texture, to binding to ingredients, everything is critical to get right for us. Theoretically, we could create a product on paper but practically it’s a different game altogether. Three, is the taste. The moment these factors intersect, we hit launch. Honestly, all food categories in the world are a playground for us. Every six to seven months you are seeing us come up with something new. However, the R&amp;D on these launches take us close to a year, that’s we work on multiple categories. From cookies, savoury items, protein powders to kids’ food, there are several options in front of us.

As someone who has worked with an FMCG giant like Unilever in the past, what are the lessons from that experience you are using to build your own brand?

Unilever is known as a leadership factory. There are good reasons for that. Now, as an entrepreneur, I am putting to use many things that I picked from there. The biggest is - businesses are all about people. Everything takes care of itself if you get the right people and build the right culture. I can say with confidence that my teams don’t look at this as a job, they take ownership of what they do.

We have seen you act in the brand’s commercial. You also acted in RazorpayX’s recent campaign. Ultrahuman also featured you. What do you enjoy the most while being on-screen? Also, are any new acting offers in the pipeline?

(Laughs) I am not getting any offers. The RazorpayX ad was more like a dramatic version of a testimonial. We have been using the product and genuinely like it too. Ultrahuman is also a product that I use, so it was easy to do a testimonial. Coming to me being a part of The Whole Truth’s commercials, to be honest, it always makes me nervous and it takes a lot of effort. I am not a flamboyant CEO who loves being on camera.

Having said that, I think one else can speak about my brand mission with more conviction than I can. 

<blockquote>As a founder of the brand, if I am putting myself out there, it’s an indication that I am responsible for what I am promising. No celebrity can do that for the brand. We are a decently funded startup and can easily go and get a celebrity face like many others, but in my opinion, no one can do it authentically than me.</blockquote>

Shashank Mehta on why The Whole Truth is on an Instagram break

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