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This is not the first move by Meta to go after ByteDance’s users.
On Sunday, the firm announced Edits, an app strikingly similar to ByteDance’s CapCut – a video editing app which went offline when the ByteDance ban took effect that same day.
And two days earlier, Meta posted a video in which two creators discussed Facebook’s “new affiliate link experience for your shoppable content” – in other words Meta’s attempt to build its own version of the highly successful TikTok Shop.
In the new system, Meta users will be able to add prominent affiliate links directly on their videos – rather than in the comments – exactly how it works on TikTok.
But that’s not all the changes Meta has made – and perhaps the most visually significant is a direct change to how Instagram looks.
Rather than posts and videos being square on user profiles, they are now rectangular – again, clearly taking inspiration from TikTok.
This has led to some backlash from creators frustrated that their profiles now look different, and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said he was aware of the criticisms.
“One of the mistakes I made was not giving people enough of a heads up,” he said in a post on Threads, external – a platform which was itself launched by Meta in attempt to capitalise on the turbulence at Twitter, now X.
