What's new:

1. Google says it's expanding protections around implied or indirect threats. Its policy previously drew bright lines around direct threats, things like doxing, or posts that called for violence. Now it's going a step further by saying it will take action against users who make indirect threats, like talking to someone about brandishing a weapon.
2. It's expanding its rules on personal attacks to ensure that they apply to everyone, from private individuals to YouTube creators to public officials. Google says it will no longer allow content that maliciously insults someone based on their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
3. It's tightening its policies for the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which gives creators of YouTube videos greater access to YouTube resources and features. The policies will be tougher on those who engage in repeated harassment or borderline harassment by suspending ongoing offenders from YPP, and eliminating their ability to make money on YouTube. Repeated violators could have their YouTube channels banned altogether.
4. It's making product changes to its comments feature. YouTube has begun to turn on its comments review feature by default for its largest channels. Google says the change will roll out to most channels by the end of the year, but that creators can opt out.

The big picture: Updates to policies around harassment or bullying are always difficult to negotiate, and sometimes enforce, because they can be subjectively interpreted.

• Many Big Tech platforms, including Google, have also faced repeated accusations of bias in content moderation, particularly from conservatives.
• While none of those allegations have been backed by substantial evidence, they force companies like Google to tread carefully when creating policies that could impact creators' freedom of speech.
• Google said it took the company eight months to update its policies and consulted many experts, like online bullying organizations and free speech proponents, to ensure that the changes didn't just solve for one kind of incident or outcome.

Why it matters: It's a good example of ways that public service accounts can be relevant and keep citizens informed.

• The TSA has been doing this for a long time on Instagram, posting photos about the most ridiculous items they encounter at checkpoints to explain whether they break the rules of travel.

Details: The account is run by two New Jersey women, Pearl Gabel and Megan Coyne, who serve on N.J. Governor Phil Murphy's digital team.

• Coyne says the response has been overwhelmingly positive and that "the engagement on our policy-focused stuff is improving consistently, which goes to show that the message is penetrating."
• "It is about more than memes," says Gabel. "It is about getting people to pay attention for the fun stuff so that they can get information about things like education, health care, or environmental policy that they otherwise might have missed.
• But on the fun side, "we have learned that people take a lot of pride in having good pizza and bagels," Coyne said.

Between the lines: "We don’t have time for haters," Gabel said.

What's next: The account has already gotten into a fight with the official account of Delaware. Expect more beef.

Go deeper: 10% of Twitter users produce almost all of U.S. political tweets

Details: The Trump campaign and an affiliated PAC have spent a combined $43,955 this year — the exact same amount as the Buttigieg campaign.

• Buttigieg's punchy and colorful ads target groups like college students, advocates, activists, green living enthusiasts and political news watchers. They cover a variety of topics from climate change to health care. Many of his ads ran between October and November and specifically targeted voters in key battleground states, including Iowa and New Hampshire.
• Trump is getting more bang for his buck as his ad spend has created over 26 million impressions, compared to the 10.6 million impressions on Buttigieg’s ads, according to the ad library. Trump has spent nearly $30,000 on one ad which began running in July and has continued to feature on the app. It was paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee PAC and asked Snap users to take a survey on how much they support the president.

Between the lines: Sen. Elizabeth Warren has spent $31,190 since the start of 2019, spread out over numerous ads which began running in April.

• She's the only other Democratic contender that's spent more than a few thousand on the platform, although other contenders have invested a lot in their earned media on Snapchat through their own Snapchat profiles, like Joe Biden. 

The big picture: Snapchat began releasing its ad library in September, making information about all political and issue-based ads on the platform publicly available for the first time.

• It's one of the only tech platforms whose policy includes fact-checking all political ads to make sure they include true statements before they run on the platform.

Go deeper: Snapchat readies 2020 news push