Data Science Intern

YouTube, Snap and TikTok settle School District addiction lawsuit. May 18, 2026 YouTube, Snap, and TikTok have reached settlements in a landmark lawsuit accusing social media companies of contributing to a youth mental health crisis and burdening schools with the resulting costs. The settlements were disclosed in filings at a federal court in Oakland, California, resolving claims brought by the Breathitt County School District in Kentucky. Terms of the agreements were not made public. The case is one of more than 1,200 lawsuits filed by school districts against major social media platforms over allegations that addictive platform designs harmed students' mental health. The Kentucky district had sought more than $60 million to fund mental health programmes and offset the costs schools incurred responding to social media-related harms among students. It also requested court orders requiring the companies to redesign features considered addictive. A spokesperson for YouTube said the matter had been "amicably resolved," while Snap also confirmed a settlement. TikTok did not immediately comment. The settlements come after a Los Angeles jury in March found Meta and Google negligent for designing social media products considered harmful to young users, awarding $6 million to a plaintiff who said she became addicted to social media as a child. The broader litigation involving thousands of cases remains ongoing in California state and federal courts.

TikTok Shop rolled out Smart+ Affiliate Matching. Here's what brands should test. Proton Media Team Growth Marketing Insights What launched. TikTok Shop quietly rolled out Smart+ Affiliate Matching to Indonesian sellers in mid-May 2026. The feature uses algorithmic matching to automatically pair brands with affiliate creators based on product category, price point, audience overlap, and historical conversion performance. Previously, brands either manually searched TikTok's affiliate marketplace or relied on agencies to recruit creators. Smart+ replaces the discovery step entirely - the platform now pushes your product directly to creators it predicts will convert. How it works. The system operates in three stages: * Product analysis. When a seller activates Smart+ for a product listing, TikTok scans the product category, price range, visual assets, and existing sales data to build a matching profile. * Creator matching. The algorithm identifies creators whose audience demographics and past affiliate performance align with the product profile. Priority goes to creators with proven conversion rates in the same category - not just follower count or engagement rate. * Auto-invitation. Matched creators receive the product in their affiliate recommendation feed with the seller's commission rate pre-attached. Creators can accept and start promoting immediately without a manual outreach step. The key technical detail: Smart+ weighs conversion rate and GMV contribution at approximately 3x the weight of reach metrics. A creator with 20K followers and a 5% conversion rate will be matched ahead of a creator with 500K followers and a 0.3% conversion rate. Early data from the beta rollout (March-April 2026) shows that Smart+ matched affiliates generated 40% higher conversion rates on average compared to manually recruited affiliates for the same product categories. The algorithm's advantage is matching at scale - it processes creator performance data across millions of transactions that no human recruiter could evaluate. What brands should test. Turn it on for your mid-range products first. Smart+ works best for products in the Rp 50K-300K range where impulse purchasing behavior is strong. Premium products above Rp 500K still benefit more from curated, relationship-based affiliate partnerships. Set competitive commission rates. The algorithm factors in your commission rate when deciding which creators see your product. Brands offering below-category-average commissions will get matched with lower-tier creators - the system optimizes for creator earnings potential too. Don't abandon manual recruitment. Smart+ excels at volume - getting your product in front of hundreds of relevant micro-affiliates simultaneously. But it doesn't replace strategic partnerships with top-tier creators who need custom briefs, exclusive rates, and direct relationships. Monitor the first 14 days closely. The algorithm learns from initial results. If early-matched creators underperform, the system recalibrates. Brands that actively remove poor-performing affiliates in the first two weeks see better matching accuracy from week three onward. What this means for the affiliate landscape. Smart+ shifts power toward the platform and away from agencies that previously controlled creator discovery. For brands with straightforward products and healthy margins, this could reduce affiliate management costs significantly. But there's a catch: commoditization risk. If every competitor in your category turns on Smart+, the same pool of creators gets flooded with similar product offers. Commission rates become the primary differentiator, which compresses margins for everyone. The brands that will win aren't the ones who rely solely on Smart+ or solely on manual recruitment. They'll run Smart+ for scale at the base while maintaining exclusive partnerships with their top 10-20 performers through direct relationships. Proton Media take. Smart+ is a net positive for the ecosystem - it lowers the barrier for brands to activate affiliate marketing and gives smaller creators more earning opportunities. But it's a tool, not a strategy. Brands that turn it on and walk away will get mediocre, algorithm-averaged results. The real advantage goes to teams that use Smart+ as their discovery layer and then invest in the creators who emerge as top performers. That's the playbook Protonmedia is already running for clients: let the algorithm find the needles, then Protonmedia build the relationships that scale them. Running affiliate campaigns on TikTok Shop and want to test Smart+ without burning budget? Protonmedia manage the full affiliate pipeline - from matching to optimization. Let's set it up right.

Supreme Court rules in favour of TikTok over Data Protection watchdog claim. The DPC had sanctioned the social media giant for allegedly allowing user data to be accessed by engineers in China and directed it pay a fine of €530 million. High Court Reporter The Supreme Court has upheld a ruling that allows TikTok to continue operating practices in Ireland while the Data Protection Commission (DPC) pursues the China-based company for alleged breaches of privacy laws in how it treats users' personal data. The DPC had sanctioned the social media giant for allegedly allowing user data to be accessed by engineers in China and directed it pay a fine of €530 million. On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from the DPC questioning the High Court's decision to put a stay on orders requiring it to pay the fine and to stop making user data accessible in China. It is alleged that TikTok is in breach of EU data protection rules (GDPR). TikTok is challenging the DPC's decisions. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, appealed the DPC decision in the High Court and was granted a stay on those orders until the result of the court's decision in the appeal case. The stay decision was challenged by the DPC, who questioned whether the underpinning rationale applied by the court was based on EU or Irish law. On Thursday, the five-judge Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal and held that the test regarding the stay was a matter for national law. In his judgment, Judge Brian Murray found that the High Court's stay was a consideration for national law, regarding balancing public interest rights and possible irreparable harm to the company in the event of a stay not being imposed on TikTok. In today's summary judgment, Judge Murray dismissed the DPC appeal, saying that the legal test governing the stay is one of national law, not EU law, as questioned. "The court must strike a balance between the irreparable harm caused to the applicant in the event that a stay is not imposed, and they prevail in their claim, and the damage to the public interest or right of third parties," said the judge. Concurring with the ruling, Judge Gerard Hogan said the Irish law had not been "ousted" regarding the question brought by the commission. He said the decision over TikTok's reprimand was not made with other authorities but was solely done by the DPC as a "lead supervisory authority". Judge Hogan also dismissed the DPC argument that Irish law, regarding stays on regulatory bodies, could undermine EU law powers. Last February, Judge Rory Mulcahy maintained the stay on the €530 million DPC fine and had "no hesitation" in granting the order sought. He was told that the full appeal was on track to proceed. The substantive appeal is being brought by TikTok Technology Ltd. TikTok Technologies UK Ltd has been joined in the case as it will ultimately be responsible for paying any fine. Previous court sittings have heard that TikTok user data originating in the European Economic Area is not stored in China, but is accessible to Chinese engineers. TikTok claims the DPC breached fair procedures in arriving at its decision. More in this section