In the past year, TikTok has emerged as one of the most popular apps in the world, with over one billion active users to date (per The Independent). The platform allows users to create short clips, typically 15 seconds long, in sync with music and voice-overs. But now, following Donald Trump's announcement on the 1st August of his intentions to ban the app in the US, Facebook-owned app Instagram has introduced a new feature, Reels, baring a striking resemblance to the lip-syncing and short videos associated with TikTok.
This is certainly not the first time that Facebook and its associated apps have copied features of their competitors, as we will come to later. But how can Facebook so blatantly steal features from competing social media platforms? And why would Trump seek to ban TikTok yet allow another app to implement identical features?
Why is TikTok being banned in the US?
On 1st August 2020, Donald Trump stated to the press his wish to ban TikTok in the US amid growing tensions with China.
TikTok originated in China back in 2016 as the app Doyuin, gaining worldwide popularity after it merged with an app of similar features, Musical.ly, in 2018 (per The Verge).
Security concerns surrounding the app have arisen amid reports that it collects data from its users, including IP address, browsing history and location data. However, a further layer of concern comes from the app's Chinese origins. The Chinese Intelligence Law 2017 gives the Chinese authorities wide legal powers to monitor and investigate foreign and domestic bodies (per Reuters). As a Chinese company, TikTok could therefore be compelled under the Law to give user information to the Chinese government, a major privacy concern for users of the app.
This Law has caused concerns, not just in the US, but also in the UK in relation to Huawei and the implementation of the 5G network, culminating in the sacking of Gavin Williamson in 2019.
The Introduction of 'Reels' and Facebook's Other Copycat Features
On the 5th August 2020, Instagram announced its new feature, 'Reels', prompting an overwhelming response from the public concerning its resemblance to TikTok, with TikTok even Tweeting on the familiarity of the feature.
However, as reported by The Guardian, this isn't the first time Facebook, who acquired Instagram back in 2012, have copied features of popular apps. In fact, this isn't the first time Facebook has specifically copied TikTok, with its apps Lasso (released 2018) and Collab (released May 2020) both sharing a similar format to the app. Facebook also incorporated features of Pinterest and TimeHop in its app Hobbi launched earlier in 2020. Most infamously, both Facebook and Instagram have introduced the 'Stories' feature most commonly associated originally with Snapchat, which has proved to be very successful on the Instagram platform.
The Legality Behind 'Copycat' Features
With Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg even admitting that Facebook have "certainly adapted features" of their competitors, the question stands of how they are legally allowed to do this.
Ultimately, this comes down to an issue of antitrust law, an area of law aiming to "provide an equal playing field for similar businesses that operate in a specific industry while preventing them from gaining too much power over their competition" (per Investopedia). Under such laws in the US, American companies cannot acquire competitors in order to prevent them from gaining a monopoly over the market; in Facebook's case, allowing them to acquire TikTok (and in the case of the earlier Stories feature dispute, Snapchat) would arguably give them a large amount of control over the social media market, making an acquisition of such apps a violation of antitrust law. This was cleverly overcome by Facebook during its acquisition of Instagram in 2012 with the argument that the two apps were not direct competitors, unlike other apps at the time such as Camera Awesome and Hipstomatic, which significantly resembled Instagram.
However, antitrust laws do not prohibit a company from copying a rival's features (per The Guardian) - if anything, consumers have a wider variety of choice within the market, somewhat giving effect to the concept of antitrust, which seeks to prevent market monopolies. Consequently, Facebook is able to copy features such as Stories and short lip-syncing videos and incorporate them into its own apps, but is not able to acquire those companies.
Cover image via CNN.
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