China’s TikTok, the social media platform wildly popular with American teens, is gearing up to release a new photo-sharing app that could potentially rival Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram, according to recent notifications sent to users.
The Verge reports that in a move that could shake up the social media landscape, TikTok is preparing to launch a dedicated photo-sharing app called TikTok Notes. The news comes after users received notifications from the company stating that it will be launching “a new app for photo posts” and that existing and future public TikTok photo posts will be shared on the new platform.
A URL for the upcoming app, photo.tiktok.com, briefly appeared online, providing a glimpse of what users can expect. The site featured a prompt to open a post in the TikTok Notes app, and an image suggesting that users will be able to write captions alongside their photos.
TikTok’s foray into the photo-sharing space could pose a significant challenge to established players like Instagram. With its massive user base and the ability to populate the new app with photos already shared on TikTok, the company may have a head start in attracting users to its new platform.
In a statement to TechCrunch, TikTok said it is “exploring ways to empower our community to create and share their creativity with photos and text in a dedicated space for those formats.” However, the company did not provide a specific timeline for the app’s release.
TikTok is most popular with American teenagers, some of whom have developed “TikTok brain.” Studies have shown that social media usage changes the brain of teens, making it even more crucial that the top app for young Americans is not controlled by a hostile communist power.
In March, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban TikTok if China doesn’t divest ownership of the app, but no further progress has been made in the Senate.
Read more at The Verge here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.