At a time when TikTok encounters questions from the U.S. government regarding its use of user information, Facebook plans to soon roll out a similar service called Instagram Reels in several countries. The offering will come to the U.S. in addition to over 50 nations in a timeframe of weeks, NBC News reported, citing unnamed sources.
Facebook will roll out Instagram Reels in the United States, Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom, and approximately 50 additional nations. Users will have the capacity to get into Reels via the lower part of their Instagram screens. The news comes as TikTok has enjoyed widespread use, particularly with teens.
Facebook rolled out Reels first in Brazil in November 2019 and brought it to Germany and France in June.
Instagram Reels allows users to create and distribute short video clips played to an expansive selection of music, similar to TikTok. Additionally, users can take and mix from the clips of other individuals, similar to TikTok. Users can also witness their videos become viral in an area of most popular clips called “Featured Reels,” also similar to TikTok.
TikTok has become the chosen digital hangout of Gen Z from a obscure video-posting website. Musicians and content creators on the platform have become famous on the internet in a matter of weeks. Their rise to notoriety comes especially as coronavirus quarantines continue throughout the globe. The platform is where the young and fashionable go to see and be seen. As a result, artists and brands are gradually moving there, too.
Wells Fargo, however, is requesting that workers take the TikTok apps off of their work phones due to worries over security. China’s Bytedance owns the app, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently said that those in the U.S. who downloaded the program risked their personal data coming into “the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.”