As part of an ongoing effort to clean house, Facebook deleted more than 3 billion fake accounts during the first six months of 2019 and another 7.3 million posts, photos and other objectionable material, according to company reports, which attribute the increase in activity to "automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time." Facebook also says it will stop paying commissions to employees who sell political ads after the practice became an albatross for the platform upon revelations that Russia purchased spots to influence the 2016 elections.

Marketers who aren't valuing Pinterest influencers could be missing out on opportunities to connect with consumers, writes Rebecca Heilweil who points to the platform's increasing popularity and user-friendly promotional tools. Oliver Yonchev, a director at Social Chain, says, "the cost of hiring an influencer on Pinterest is likely lower than the cost of hiring an influencer on another platform. Moreover, Pinterest doesn't take a cut."

Instagram reports that 60% of users watch Stories with the sound turned on and agency executives debate whether adding captions to engage the 40% of consumers who view videos with the sound muted is a good strategy. "Captions look super out-of-place in Stories," says McGarryBowen Chicago's Kevin Kovanich, while Periscope's Bridget Jewell notes "a lot of the content we're creating isn't dependent upon sound."

Budweiser is honoring US fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, and hopes to encourage Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance with its initiative. At 3 p.m. EDT, across social, radio and TV it will run a prerecorded spot from Calverton National Military Cemetery, and has partnered with brand influencers to share an image without a logo and the message "Moment of silence in honor of fallen heroes."

M/H VCCP and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children have created a new version of the 1993 hit "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum that's performed by Jamie N Commons and Skylar Grey and features Gallant. "Runaway Train 25" uses geolocation data to update the missing children featured in the music video based on the viewer's location, and the campaign encourages people to share details on social using #RunawayTrain25 and #MissingKids in an effort to find them.

Instagram's IGTV, which had only accepted video uploads in vertical, "portrait" format, is now allowing landscape orientation. The company has made several other changes aimed at increasing IGTV's popularity, but a lack of monetization options could still be a drawback.

Roughly 50% of video ads are viewed on mobile devices, an increase from 2018's 40%, according to a PubMatic first-quarter report. Taylor Peterson writes that mobile devices will become the "preferred platform for video ad placements by the end of the year" if the growth is maintained.

Chick-fil-A is employing artificial intelligence and machine learning via Amazon's AWS Comprehend technology to monitor social media for mentions of food-related illnesses potentially related to its 2,400 restaurants in the US and the company reports a 78% accuracy rate. The chain's store managers are alerted to potential issues via a custom app.

Nineteen-year-old Ivana Reynoso's Twitter video of her dancing with her dad in their garage has attracted more than 11.6 million views. "[M]e and my mom started arguing so my dad brought me in the garage to escape her ... we did this for an hour," she tweeted.

In observance of Memorial Day in the US, SmartBrief will not publish Monday. Publication will resume Tuesday.