TikTok launches text posts feature to rival Twitter and Threads

Social media giant TikTok announced a feature launch aimed at dethroning Twitter (recently rebranded to X) as the go-to text-based social media platform.

Just 20 days after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta launched Threads to rival X, TikTok joined the race by allowing TikTokers to create and post text-based content. The new feature aims to provide a platform for users that display their creativity over comments and captions.

When creating a new post on TikTok, users can choose between photo, video and text. Unlike Threads and X, TikTok allows greater customization to text posts, allowing TikTokers to include features such as location and music.

According to TikTok, the other features “to make your text-based content stand out” are stickers, tags and hashtags, background colors and saving drafts.

While TikTok strives to differentiate itself from its competitors, Threads has been accused of blatantly copying an interface that Twitter has been using for over a decade. However, the similarity between Threads and X is no longer limited to the visuals.

Threads recently imposed rate limits to block crypto and spam bots.

“Spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives). If you get caught up [in] those protections let us know,” explained Instagram head Adam Mosseri.