Facebook’s Instagram photo-sharing app is launching its clone of TikTok in more than 50 countries, a week after CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s copycat strategies to U.S. lawmakers at an antitrust hearing.
The product, called Reels, lets people edit 15-second clips of videos together alongside music, just like on TikTok. It will be embedded into Instagram in the U.S. and elsewhere, the company said Wednesday in blog post. Reels is the second major Instagram enancement that follows an almost identical feature popularized by a competitor. Instagram Stories, the tool for posting videos and photos that disappear, was inspired by Snap Inc.
Reels isn’t Facebook’s first attempt at challenging TikTok. Facebook’s Lasso, a separate application with similar features that was tested in limited markets, was shut down last month after it failed to win over an audience. Reels may have better luck; it’s launching just as TikTok’s existence in the U.S. is being challenged by President Donald Trump.
“The timing happens to be coincidental in some ways,” Vishal Shah, the head of product at Instagram, said in an interview with reporters. Facebook has already released Reels in other countries—including India, after TikTok was banned by the government. “We had the sense that the product had a lot of potential and we learned really quickly that that was resonating with people,” Shah said.