TikTok takes on Elon Musk’s X with text-only posts

Chinese-owned app claims new feature will ‘empower’ users

TikTok has launched a new text-based feature to rival other social media platforms like Meta’s Threads and Elon Musk’s X app.

The Chinese-owned app unveiled the new feature on the same day that Mr Musk rebranded Twitter to X, which the tech billionaire plans to transform into an “everything app” like China’s WeChat.

TikTok claimed in a blog post published on Monday that the latest format would “empower” its users.

“Text is the latest addition to options for content creation, allowing creators to share their stories, poems, recipes, and other written content on TikTok – giving creators another way to express themselves and making it even easier to create,” the blog post stated.

“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.”

TikTok gained huge popularity through short-form video content – briefly overtaking Google to become the most popular destination on the internet in 2021 – and has since expanded to support images in an effort to take on Instagram.

Earlier this month, TikTok also launched a music streaming service that offers an alternative to giants like Spotify and Apple Music, however it is currently only available in Brazil and Indonesia. TikTok said in a press release at the time that it “plans for further growth in other markets”.

TikTok’s text posts will support stickers, hashtags and sounds (TikTok)

The new text feature looks more similar to Instagram Stories in appearance, offering colourful backgrounds and the ability to add stickers to a post.

Unlike Threads or X, TikTok’s text posts will also support sounds that play in the background, similar to its video- and image-sharing features.

“Sounds are core to the TikTok experience, which is why we’ve incorporated them into text posts,” the company explained in a note to users.

“You’ll be able to add tunes that readers can groove to as they peruse your writing.”

Posts have a 1,000-character limit – shorter than the 10,000 limit offered to paying X users but more than the 500-character limit on Threads.