What’s up?
It’s Sussan Mourad here with Clevver News and apparently the apple doesn’t fall too
far from the tree because while we all know that famous Tik Tokkers seem to be surrounded
by drama, now the app Tik Tok itself just got caught up in some drama of its own.
Alright, so as if it hadn’t already been a chaotic enough week for Tik Tok with President
Trump saying he plans to ban the app...
“We’re looking at Tik Tok.
We may be banning Tik Tok, we may be doing some other things.”
Instagram went ahead and launched their new feature called Instagram Reels, which many
reports are calling a “direct competitor” to Tik Tok.
If you haven’t checked out Reels yet, it lets users make 15-second edited videos overlaid
with music and an array of filters and effects.
Yeah it does!
When it comes to watching Reels, they either show up in your feed or Instagram has redone
its Explore page to create a specific spot for Reels at the top of the screen that people
can vertically scroll through, similar to TikTok’s “For You Page.”
And this isn’t the first time that Instagram has done something like this.
We all remember when they launched Instagram stories after Snapchat stories were already
around and IGTV after YouTube was already around.
Now you could say that plenty of other apps are also copycats, even Tik Tok, don’t worry,
more on that in a bit.
But given all the stress Tik Tok has been under this past week, they took to Twitter
to throw some shade at Instagram for their new Tik Tok-like feature.
Tik Tok US retweeted Instagram’s Reels announcement tweet writing quote, “well... this looks
familiar” with the thinking and winking emojis.
And fellow Tik Tok accounts like Tik Tok UK and Tik Tok Brazil also chimed in saying things
like “For reel.”
And check that spelling, we see you Tik Tok UK.
But fans had a lot to say about Tik Tok’s shady tweet down in the replies.
Some people came to Tik Tok’s defense like this person who wrote quote, “Finally y’all
said it anyways TikTok will always be superior”
This person said “the shade.. tik tok tell em.”
And this fan was just here for the drama writing quote, “we love to see apps fighting.”
But other people called Tik Tok out for being hypocritical writing things like “@tiktok_us
and u look familiar to vine so what are u trying to say?”
This person added, “@tiktok_us Remember this?
Talk about copying.”
And this person wrote that Tik Tok is the, “Chinese copy of Vine.
You have no room to talk”
So clearly people were torn on whether to take Tik Tok or Instagram’s side in this,
but the queen of Tik Tok, Charli D’Amelio, made her stance clear on the matter.
She retweeted Tik Tok’s tweet saying that Instagram Reels quote, “looks familiar”
and Charli herself hasn’t posted any Reels yet while other famous Tik Tokkers have embraced
the new IG feature.
So while Charli has almost 26 million followers on Instagram, it looks like she’s staying
loyal to the app that made her famous.
But the fate of Tik Tok is even more up in the air this week as President Trump actually
put in place an executive order, calling the wide use of Chinese apps like Tik Tok a quote
"national emergency."
In case you aren’t all caught up on why Trump is trying to ban the beloved app, there
are actually many U.S. officials on both sides that have expressed concerns over TikTok's
Chinese ownership and fears that Beijing could use the social media app to gain access to
U.S. user data.
It was just Trump’s surprise announcement about banning Tik Tok last week that caught
everyone off guard.
But as of Thursday, he went ahead and signed an executive order to ban TikTok in 45 days.
The executive order says “TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its
users, including internet and other network activity information such as location data
and browsing and search histories.
This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans'
personal and proprietary information --- potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal
employees, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
But the executive order notably bans Byte Dance, Tik Tok’s parent company based in
China, not Tik Tok itself.
So this leaves the possibility open for TikTok to continue operating in the United States
under an American company such as Microsoft, which has been in talks about buying some
or all of TikTok.
And Tik Tok actually responded to the President’s executive order in their own post slamming
the administration writing quote, “For nearly a year, we have sought to engage with the
US government in good faith to provide a constructive solution to the concerns that have been expressed.
What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms
of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself
into negotiations between private businesses.”
So the fate of Tik Tok in the United States is definitely up in the air at the moment,
so I guess we will just have to enjoy Tik Tokking for the next 45 days and hope for
the best.
Obviously we will keep you guys updated on this story as it continues to unfold.
If you want more on the future of Tik Tok, click right over here for another Clevver
News video.
Also, let us know down in the comments below what you think of Instagram Reels and if you’ve
tried it out yet.
I’m your host Sussan Mourad, bye guys!