TikTok announces text post feature as Twitter rebrands, Meta launches alternative

Video-based social media platform TikTok announced Monday that it will permits its users to create text-based posts, which will also include options to add sounds, hashtags, and other features.

"At TikTok, we're always looking to empower our creators and community with innovative tools that inspire self expression," the company stated in a press release. "Today we're thrilled to announce the expansion of text posts on TikTok, a new format for creating text-based content that broadens options for creators to share their ideas and express their creativity. With text posts, we're expanding the boundaries of content creation for everyone on TikTok, giving the written creativity we've seen in comments, captions, and videos a dedicated space to shine."

Users will be able to add stickers, tags, hashtags, background colors, and sound to their text posts, which they will also be able to save as drafts and/or discard.

"Text is the latest addition to options for content creation, allowing creators to share their stories, poems, lyrics, and other written content on TikTok - giving creators another way to express themselves and making it even easier to create," the press release continued.

The new features put TikTok in more direct competition with Twitter, a primarily text-based social media platform. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, recently launched Threads, its own text-based platform, in a bid to compete with Twitter and capitalize on user frustrations with Elon Musk's tinkering with the app.

Twitter, for its part, has moved to rebrand as "X," with the platform's website now featuring a stylized version of the letter in place of the classic bird logo.

TikTok has come under intense scrutiny for its ties to China. The Beijing-based ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, maintains close relations with the Chinese government and both Republicans and Democrats have expressed concerns that Chinese influence over the app may pose a security risk to U.S. users.

The company continues to work with the U.S. government and lawmakers to address these concerns in a bid to avoid an oft-floated outright ban on the app. Numerous state governments have already barred TikTok's use on official state devices, while Montana in May banned app marketplaces from offering it for download at all. The Montana ban has since become the subject of a legal challenge.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.