With TikTok being on a knife-edge in the United States, rival social platforms are all in to take advantage of the situation and attract refugees from the ByteDance-owned video-sharing platform. One of them is X, a social platform owned by Elon Musk.
Today, X announced adding a dedicated video tab for US-based users. The tab allows users to access video content on X solely and move away from text content. The latest addition to Musk-owned X is similar to what we've already seen with Instagram's Reels tab or YouTube Shorts.
Over the past few years, X has thrown more weight behind video content. In 2022, before Musk could acquire the platform, it added a so-called "immersive media viewer" that could expand videos to full screen with a click. After Musk's acquisition, the billionaire also doubled down on video content by letting premium subscribers upload up to 2 hours-long videos.
But that's not all for X. After the US Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban, Elon Musk ventilated the idea of bringing back Vine to X, saying, "We're looking into it." Vine was a short-form video-sharing platform that allowed Twitter users to capture and share up to 6-second-long looping video clips. Vine was shut down in 2017.
Following the Supreme Court order, TikTok was banned in the United States. However, it could restore operations after Donald Trump agreed to delay the ban, provided that the US should own 50% of the app under a joint venture. "By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without US approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions." Trump said.
Meanwhile, X is not alone in hunting TikTok refugees. Instagram has recently revealed a video editing app called Edits. The app hopes to attract users from CapCut, another ByteDance-owned app that is now blocked in the US.
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