Meta Delays Its AI Ad Liability Clause, Instagram Tests 90-Minute Video: This Week in Social

The week in brief:

• Meta pushed back the effective date of a new Commercial Terms clause that makes advertisers solely responsible for AI edits Meta makes to their ads, moving it from October 30 to November 20 after advertisers and publishers pushed back.
• Instagram began testing "Features," horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, with a limited group of US creators on October 26.
• YouTube is piloting a $20 payout threshold instead of the usual $100 minimum for a randomly selected group of creators in the US, India, and Indonesia, starting with October 2026 payments.

Three different platforms, three different versions of the same move this week: each one shifted a line that used to be fixed. Meta tried to hand advertisers the risk for edits Meta's own AI makes, then backed off the date once people noticed. Instagram is testing whether long-form video even belongs on a feed app. YouTube is testing whether creators need to wait as long to get paid. None of these are final, which is exactly why this is the week to look at each one before it quietly becomes normal.

Meta delayed its AI-ad-liability clause to November 20 after advertisers pulled campaigns Meta had altered

Meta's updated Commercial Terms were set to take effect October 30 with new language putting the risk for AI-generated or AI-altered ad content entirely on the advertiser, including AI features Meta turns on by default. The clause states advertisers are "solely responsible for and assume any and all risks" from those features, and no signature is required: continuing to run ads after the date counts as accepting it. Advertisers reported Meta's AI quietly adding sitelinks, translations, and AI-generated images to live ads they hadn't asked for, and some pulled campaigns over it (Adweek). After that backlash, plus separate complaints from publishers over a crawling clause in the same update, Meta moved the effective date to November 20 (Marketing Interactive).

If an agency runs any paid Meta campaigns for a client, lead-gen ads on Facebook or Instagram count, this is the one to actually read before it takes effect. Once it's live, if Meta's AI changes a price, a claim, or an image in a client's ad and that change causes a problem, the advertiser carries that risk, not Meta. A Meta spokesperson said advertisers can turn off individual Advantage+ features in Ads Manager at any time, but didn't say whether advertisers are liable for AI features they never switched on in the first place.

This week's move: open Ads Manager for every client running Meta ads and check what's actually toggled on under Advantage+ Creative, specifically text generation, image generation, translations, and destination changes. Turn off anything the client hasn't explicitly signed off on, and write down what's on and off for each account as of today. "We didn't know Meta changed the ad" won't be a great answer to a client in three weeks.

Instagram is testing 90-minute horizontal video for a small group of creators

Instagram started testing a feature called "Features" on October 26: horizontal video up to 90 minutes long, available to a limited group of US creators after an earlier trial in Brazil (The Hollywood Reporter). Creators in the test can attach short Reels to a long video as teasers that point back to it. Instagram's VP of product Tessa Lyons framed the format around content meant to be watched on a TV screen, podcasts, interviews, long sit-down conversations, which puts this squarely in competition with YouTube. It's Instagram's second attempt at long-form after IGTV, which it shut down in 2022. Unlike YouTube, Instagram isn't sharing ad revenue with creators on this format, at least not yet (Variety).

For agencies with consultant, coach, or expert clients who already record long conversations, interviews, webinars, client Q&As, this is worth watching but not worth building a plan around yet. It's a closed test with no payout structure, so there's no business case for producing new 90-minute content for it right now.

What to actually do: check whether any client account shows the Features option. If one does, don't create anything new for it, just repurpose something already sitting on YouTube or a podcast feed and post it as a Feature with a short Reel teaser attached, exactly the behavior Instagram is testing for. If no client has it yet, there's nothing to do but note it and move on.

YouTube is testing a $20 payout threshold instead of $100 for a test group of creators

YouTube is piloting a lower minimum payout for Partner Program earnings, $20 instead of the standard $100, for a randomly selected group of creators in the US, India, and Indonesia, starting with October 2026 payments (Tubefilter). Creators selected for the test get a notification and can track it in YouTube Studio's mobile app. Anyone who'd rather keep the $100 threshold can set it back manually in their AdSense settings, and any balance under the threshold in a given month still rolls over to the next, same as today. This changes only when a creator gets paid, not how much they earn.

For an agency managing a client's YouTube presence, especially a smaller local-business or consultant channel that doesn't always clear $100 in ad revenue in a given month, this is a bookkeeping change, not a strategy one. It mostly matters for cash-flow timing and for not confusing a client when a payout shows up smaller or sooner than they expect.

This week's move: check whether a client's YouTube channel received the notification about the new threshold. If a client would rather keep the old $100 cadence for simpler accounting, point them to the AdSense setting to raise it back. If you're already managing a client's YouTube channel alongside their Instagram and Facebook, Inexra's YouTube integration keeps their videos, Shorts, and comments on the same calendar and in the same inbox as the rest of the account, so a payout-timing question like this doesn't require logging into a separate dashboard to answer.

What to do before Monday

• Audit Advantage+ Creative settings on every live Meta ad account and turn off any AI edit feature a client hasn't approved, before the new Commercial Terms take effect November 20.
• Tell any client running paid Meta lead-gen ads that they, not Meta, will carry the risk for AI edits to their ads once the new terms land, so it isn't a surprise later.
• If a client's Instagram account shows the Features test, repurpose an existing long interview or webinar into it with a short Reel teaser rather than producing something new.
• Check whether a client's YouTube channel got the $20 payout threshold notification, and help them reset to $100 in AdSense if they'd rather keep the old schedule.
• Keep an eye on Meta's Commercial Terms page between now and November 20, since the date already moved once.