Instagram moves to capitalize on TikTok ban with release of new app

The United States government briefly banned the popular video-sharing app TikTok after the deadline given to TikTok's owner, ByteDance, was reached.

The banning of TikTok dates back to April last year when the US Senate enacted a new law that categorized TikTok as a national security threat. US lawmakers found TikTok to be a threat to the safety of millions of Americans due to its ties to the Chinese government and the potential for the data of approximately 170 million Americans to be funneled to a foreign, adversarial government.

The law gave TikTok owner ByteDance 270 days, or until January 19, 2025, to either sell the app to a US government-verified entity or have it removed from both app stores and placed on the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ban list, preventing them from hosting the service. However, TikTok wasn't the only ByteDance app to be banned, and while TikTok is now back, thanks to President Trump, ByteDance's other apps that were also banned have yet to return. Those apps are CapCut, Lemon8, Gauth, Hypic, Lark, Melolo, Fizzo, Tokopedia, and Marvel Snap.

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Likely the second-most popular app behind TikTok is CapCut, a popular video-editing app that is commonly used to produce videos posted to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and other vertical-based video platforms. Since CapCut is still dark, Instagram has seen this as an opportunity to announce a new competing video editing app called Edits. According to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, Edits is a free video editor that will launch next month. Edits will come with a suite of video editing features, such as the ability to insert text into videos, add captions, audio tracks, stickers, special effects, green screens, and more.

"Edits is more than a video editing app; it's a full suite of creative tools. There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera (which I used to record this video), all the editing tools you'd expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and - if you decide to share your videos on Instagram - powerful insights into how those videos perform.

You can preorder the app today in the iOS App Store, and it's coming to Android soon. The app won't be available to download until next month, and in the meantime, we're going to work with a handful of video creators to get their feedback and improve the experience," explained Instagram head Adam Mosseri