TikTok Launches Text Posts, Challenges Musk’s X

TikTok launches Text-only Posts to Compete with Twitter Shortly After Elon Musk's x Rebrand

TikTok, the social platform famous for its viral video content, said Monday that it will introduce text-only posts, joining other tech giants in competing with troubled Twitter.

The text posts on TikTok will look like the ones on Instagram, which also launched a rival to Twitter — which Elon Musk rebranded as X — earlier this month called Threads.

TikTok has an advantage of its scale, with about 1.4 billion monthly active users, according to specialist site Business of Apps.

But unlike Meta's parent company, it has decided to add its new text-only feature to its app instead of creating a separate product, as Meta did with Threads.

TikTok's version will be more visually appealing than a Twitter or Threads post, with users able to customize the post with a color backdrop, music, and stickers.

The company, which is owned by China, said the new format will increase the "possibilities of content creation for everyone on TikTok" and tap into the "creativity" seen in comments and captions, the company said.

Besides Threads, other platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, and Substack Notes have appeared as possible competitors to Twitter, but none have so far toppled it despite its problems.

Musk said last week that Twitter has seen about half of its advertising revenue drop, creating an opportunity for the challengers.