Facebook competes with TikTok with "Reels"

The American company Facebook launched the new "Reels" feature on the "Instagram" platform, a service very similar to the "TikTok" application.

Reels allows the publication and sharing of video recordings to display to users whose scope is not limited to the circle of friends and followers, which provides everyone with the opportunity to become a content maker on Instagram and deliver their posts to new audiences on the global stage, "according to the American company in a statement.

After experiencing this feature since November in Brazil, and then in France and Germany since June, this new format will start working on Wednesday in 50 countries from the United States to Australia through Britain, India and Japan.

Instagram users will find a new tab that allows them to add visual effects to augmented reality and music while switching between short 15-second videos recorded via a smartphone.

And according to "cnbcarabia", the product manager at Instagram, Vishal Shah, said: "We were not the first to invent the story tape, and we were not the first to create the Stories format and we are not naturally the first to create short-term videos."

Social networks compete to gain users' interest and increase their time spent. Its economic model relies on personal data that builds consumer profiles and sells targeted ads on a large scale.

The TikTok application has achieved large audiences in recent months, especially in the home quarantine phase to combat the Covid-19 epidemic, and has crossed the threshold of one billion users emulating that of Instagram.

However, the application owned by a Chinese group has become at the center of the trade and political tensions between the United States and China, in light of unproven accusations directed by Washington of spying on users for Beijing.

US President Donald Trump has hinted that TikTok will be banned in the United States if the deal to sell it to an American company is not completed by September 15th.