TLDR: Social Media Headlines – 23 September 2025

• Lululemon’s ‘downward spiral’ — and how the brand plans to break out of it: High-priced athleisure isn’t dead, but boring athleisure might be. That means it’s back to the innovation drawing board for the much-loved Canadian brand.
• NikeSkims, the next big play for women activewear shoppers, launches Friday: Featuring seven collections, the brand will offer styles designed for everyday wear, strength training and other pursuits.
• How James Avery Jewelry won back legacy customers: The launch of the “Designs From Our Archives” collection highlighted artisans — and had customers lining up outside of stores.
• Amazon debuts AI ‘creative partner’ to aid with campaign development: Now in beta, the chat feature draws on Amazon’s retail insights to assist with everything from research to pumping out final creative assets like video.
• Kohl’s expands fall sales event to 4 days: The department store is offering deals on thousands of products across apparel, beauty and more online and in stores.
• AI shopping tools are evolving, but are they ready for the holidays?: Most consumers are open to generative AI-powered guidance, but only 3% will start their shopping journey with a ChatGPT-type search, according to Coveo.
• Forever 21 may open stores in the US, after all: Authentic Brands Group, which controls the fast-fashion brand’s IP, said it’s close to a deal. The brand management firm on Wednesday had announced e-commerce and wholesale partnerships.
• The White House yesterday outlined a preliminary deal to place TikTok’s US operations under American control, with some of the country’s largest tech and media companies at the helm. The move seeks to avert a ban on the Chinese-owned social media app over national security and privacy concerns.
• It took almost a month, but Google finally completed the Google August 2025 spam update. This update felt pretty widespread and impactful, especially at the beginning of the update, for a spam update. But with all the tracking tools being a mess, with the num parameter being disabled, and Search Console impressions dropping, after September 10, it makes it much harder to track.
• Google’s ad tech monopoly remedies trial begins: The DOJ’s ad tech remedies trial could crack open Google’s dominance of programmatic ads, reshaping transparency across the open web.
• Google launches seasonal bid adjustments for app campaigns: Google’s new beta lets app marketers flag big conversion spikes so Smart Bidding can ramp up performance during short-term promos and sales.
• Google Ads doubles negative keyword list limit: Glitch or quiet policy change? It’s unclear whether Google quietly raised negative keyword list limits after one account exceeded the documented 5,000-cap without issue.
• Hidden prompt injection: The black hat trick AI outgrew: Invisible prompts once tricked AI like old SEO hacks. Here’s how LLMs filter hidden commands and protect against manipulation.
• Molten Regolith Electrolysis Could Make Moon Dust Useful: Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist is designed to transform lunar and Martian regolith into solar power systems, breathable oxygen, propellant, metals, and construction materials. Ensuring sustainability requires that missions rely on local resources to provide basic necessities. Blue Alchemist uses a molten regolith electrolysis reactor, which uses electrical current to separate oxygen from metals without water, toxic chemicals, or carbon emissions. Blue Origin is on track to scale the system to make lunar landings up to 60% cheaper and reduce fuel-cell and battery masses by up to 70%.
• Gizmodo Science Fair: A New Pill to Treat Schizophrenia—the First in 50 Years – Karuna Therapeutics and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy pill is the first novel medication for schizophrenia in 50 years. The drug, approved by the FDA last fall, reduces symptoms like hallucinations without the adverse effects common in other antipsychotics, such as weight gain. Cobenfy’s approval was the culmination of an effort that began over 15 years ago. Karuna Therapeutics and Bristol Myers Squibb Won the 2025 Gizmodo Science Fair for their research.
• Why we built the Responses API: OpenAI’s Responses API unlocks persistent reasoning, hosted tools, and multimodal workflows for GPT-5. It is tailor-made for reasoning models and the agentic future. While Chat Completions isn’t going away, OpenAI expects Responses to eventually become the default way developers build with OpenAI models.
• Why Local-First Apps Haven’t Become Popular?: Very few apps get offline support right because syncing is hard. Building a local-first app means effectively creating a distributed system where multiple devices can mutate data independently, sometimes offline, while still converging to the exact same state without losing data. This involves solving the challenges of unreliable ordering and conflicts. SQLite is a battle-tested, lightweight, and readily available solution for local-first apps that guarantees convergence across devices, regardless of the sync order.
• Cloudflare’s 2025 Annual Founders’ Letter: Cloudflare launched in 2010 when less than 20% of the Internet was encrypted – today, well over 95% is encrypted, thanks in part to its efforts. The basic business model of the Internet for the past 15 years has been the same: create compelling content, find a way to be discovered, then generate value from the resulting traffic. There’s always been a reward system that transferred value from consumers to creators. Ads were previously the only micropayment system that worked at scale to encourage an open Internet while also compensating content creators for their work, but change is being driven by AI. This article looks at how Cloudflare plans to navigate this change and what the new Internet business model will look like.
• Google’s Ad Monopoly Under Microscope as Judge Weighs Remedies: The Justice Department has asked a US District Judge to order Google to divest AdX, an advertising exchange. It claims the divestiture would enable meaningful change. Google claims that it would be a radical solution that would remove the company from the advertising-exchange business completely. Google plans to appeal the ruling that it violated the law.
• Facebook is getting an AI dating assistant: Meta’s AI dating assistant is designed to help users find matches who are more closely tailored to what they are looking for.
• Testing is better than DSA: The study of Data Structures and Algorithms is overemphasized, as actual software engineering almost never involves implementing the algorithms that are commonly taught.
• London may be home to some amazing parks, yet too many residents still lack access to green spaces. Now, through the Nature Towns and Cities initiative, millions are being invested to reconnect communities with nature. From Ealing’s new regional park to Lewisham’s inclusive green transformations, urban greening is bringing fresher air and wildlife that little bit closer to home.
• Full cycle: The chief executive of Lime has announced plans to expand access across all London boroughs.
• Robo-companions: Health facilities in the US have started using robots as companions to comfort their patients.
• Delivering dodos: A biotech firm has announced a “pivotal step” in their efforts to bring back the extinct dodo, but there are mixed reactions.
• Gjoa greenhouse: A high-tech greenhouse in an Inuit hamlet in Canada’s Arctic is yielding locally-grown fresh produce for the first time.
• Diverting doomscrolling: The Liberal Democrats are calling for children using social media apps to be shown cigarette-style health warnings to help protect their mental health.
• Treacherous TV: The full lineup and launch date for the first-ever celebrity version of The Traitors have been announced. Discover who’s going to be 100% faithful.
• Israel’s military pushed deeper towards the most populated areas of Gaza City, a painful reminder for Gazans that Western powers’ recognition of a Palestinian state does not mean an end to the horrors of war.
• US President Donald Trump will address the U.N. General Assembly as world leaders question whether the United States, with its “America First” foreign policy, is still prepared to play a leadership role in global affairs.
• Trump linked autism to childhood vaccine use and the taking of popular pain medication Tylenol by women when pregnant, elevating claims not backed by scientific evidence. On the Reuters World News podcast US Healthcare and Pharma Editor Caroline Humer explains what Trump’s warnings about Tylenol and autism are based on.
• Britain’s energy minister Ed Miliband said talk of a US-led global retreat from climate action was overstated and that the economic arguments supporting net zero were strong enough to see off domestic and international scepticism.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will seek more support from allies when he addresses the U.N. and meets Trump this week, but behind the scenes Kyiv is quietly preparing for a new phase of the war in which it relies more on itself. Meanwhile, the West and Russia clash at U.N. after incidents in NATO air space.
• Hong Kong shut down ahead of Super Typhoon Ragasa, the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year, with authorities urging people to stay at home, while most passenger flights were due to be suspended until Thursday.
• Military-led West African countries Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have announced their withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, denouncing it as “a tool of neocolonial repression.”
• Venezuelan military forces drove armoured vehicles and conducted weapons training for civilians in Caracas as tensions with the United States escalated over a US military buildup in the Caribbean and recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels. View our gallery.
• Global growth is holding up better than expected, but the full brunt of the US import tariff shock is still to be felt as AI investment props up US activity for now and fiscal support cushions China’s slowdown, the OECD said.
• The Trump administration’s hefty new visa fees for H-1B workers have prompted high-level talks inside companies in Silicon Valley and beyond on the possibility of moving more jobs overseas – precisely the outcome the policy was meant to stop.
• Amazon duped tens of millions of Prime customers by signing them up without consent and locking them in with overly complex cancellation methods, the US Federal Trade Commission will seek to show at a trial starting in Seattle.
• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s pledge of “large and forceful” actions to stabilize Argentina’s wobbling currency by using a 91-year-old US crisis fund could help the peso find its footing, at least for a while.
• In a landmark interpretation, China’s top court recently reinforced that workarounds between employers and workers to evade social insurance contributions are invalid, a move that both promises to fund depleted pension plans and threatens jobs and businesses.
• Chinese buyers booked at least 10 cargoes of Argentine soybeans after Buenos Aires scrapped grain export taxes, three traders said, dealing another setback to US farmers already shut out of their top market and hit by low prices.
• A global gathering of aviation leaders in Montreal will need to navigate international rifts as it confronts high tech threats, rising pollution from flights and labor shortages.
• FTC case against Amazon Prime subscription practices begins: The agency alleges the online retailer used manipulative tactics to trick millions of consumers to sign up for Prime and made it hard to cancel.
• Walmart boosts search accuracy across languages with better translations: The retailer uses an AI agent to flag search terms, which are sent to a team of linguists who find the right meaning and add it to the company’s translation platform.
• Kroger plans acceleration of AI efforts: The grocer is using the technology to operate more efficiently, improve customer experience and boost sales.
• Meta’s AI systems are getting better at determining user age.
• New data shows that X is still struggling to rebuild its ad business.
• More ways to find potential dates via Meta’s matchmaking element.
• Meta will now be able to provide AI services for government projects.
• Under the proposal, the US government will decide who’s on the board of TikTok US.The US government says a deal is imminent, but Chinese officials seem less assured.
• Video content is driving big engagement on LinkedIn.
• Beijing’s stance on selling the video-sharing platform has softened amid other disputes with Washington. TikTok. The turnaround has raised questions about what China might expect in return, though it has yet to confirm a deal.
• Sephora cozies up to beauty creators with new affiliate program: My Sephora Storefront allows U.S. influencers to build shoppable digital storefronts and arrives as sales from affiliate marketing continue to grow.
• Digital ad spending outlook dims as tariff impact intensifies: Retail and auto are leading a pullback, with digital now expected to grow 9.5% in 2025, two percentage points lower than prior forecasts.
• AB InBev teams with Netflix for co-branded campaigns around live events: The mutliyear partnership includes consumer activations, limited-edition packaging, digital promotions and other efforts.
• Affordability concerns are disrupting auto-buyer behaviors. Is your targeting keeping pace?
• Taco Bell promotes marketing execs to take US success global: CMO Taylor Montgomery was promoted to global chief brand officer and will be succeeded by Luis Restrepo, vice president of brand and product marketing.

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• The Daily Aus
• Top Auto
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• TLDR
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• The Daily Carnage
• Reuters
• LA Times
• CX Dive
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• Sail World
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