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For months, Instagram has been watching and waiting to see what happens to TikTok’s competitor under the new federal law that bans the application in the United States. On Sunday, the day this law went into effect, Instagram appeared.
The social media app, which is owned by Meta, has announced a new app called Edits, a video editing product that looks like a clone of CapCut, which is used by millions of people to put together short videos for TikTok. CapCut and TikTok are owned by ByteDance, the Chinese internet giant, which has led to US inspections of the apps on national security grounds.
“There’s a lot going on in the world right now,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said in a post on the platform on Sunday. “No matter what happens, we think it’s our job to build the most compelling creative tools for video creators.”
TikTok and its sister apps, CapCut and Lemon8, have long given American social media apps a run for their money. TikTok has 170 million US users and said in a legal filing that it cannot go dark even temporarily because it will suffer from competition in one of the largest markets.
Last Saturday, hours before the federal law banning TikTok was introduced, TikTok, CapCut and Lemon8 disappeared, although TikTok came back to life on Sunday when President-elect Donald J. .Trump said he planned to issue an executive order this week. to suspend the ban.
TikTok’s competitors did not wait to break the situation. Mr. Mosseri explained that Edits is specifically designed for creators to edit videos on their phones and save ideas for other videos they may want to post later.
Mr. Mosseri said creators can use Edits to work on videos and post them to any platform they want, not just Instagram. Influencers have often used CapCut to work on videos and post them on multiple platforms, including TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Mr. Mosseri said people can pre-order Change from the Apple App Store starting Sunday and the app will be available on Android in February.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, has spoken publicly about looking into the problems with TikTok. His Silicon Valley company hired a lobbyist to make the case that American tech companies must be first, as part of winning the technology race against China.
In a meeting with employees last week, the head of marketing at Meta also said that the company needs to prepare for the possibility that TikTok users will switch to the Meta app and should dedicate personnel and other resources for these potential developments. Instagram also changed the layout for some users last week, framing content in a vertical, rectangular format reminiscent of TikTok.
Instagram has long emulated TikTok’s success. In 2020, Instagram released Reels, an almost identical clone of TikTok’s short video format. Reels has grown to be one of the most popular features on Instagram and Facebook.
US internet users said they would watch Instagram Reels if TikTok were banned, according to a recent TD Cowen survey of 2,500 consumers. Reels will attract 29 percent of respondents, while 23 percent said they will spend more time on YouTube Shorts, and 15 percent will look for new applications, according to the survey.
Among advertisers, the benefits for Instagram were more pronounced, with 56 percent of ad buyers telling TD Cowen in a survey last quarter that their customers are most likely to advertise on Reels this year. Another 24 percent favored YouTube Shorts, while 20 percent chose TikTok.
Madison Malone Kircher contributed reporting from New York.
