Facebook brings Instagram Reels to replace TikTok in India

After the ban of TikTok and other Chinese apps in India, Facebook on Wednesday introduced Instagram Reels — a feature that allows users to create short-form videos (up to 15 seconds long) on the app, add filters and songs and share with their followers.

The Instagram Reels is somewhat similar to the features of recently banned TikTok as both the apps allow its users to create videos with trending songs or post challenges.

Currently, videos are a very popular way to engage on Instagram. “Videos make up over a third of all posts in India,” said Ajit Mohan, the head of Facebook India. The VP of Facebook, VP Shah added; “We also realised that stories are not the only place where they wanted to share these videos. They wanted them to stick on for longer and be distributed beyond their followers.”

Also read: TikTok responds to ban, says it has not shared any Indian users’ info with foreign Govt

The new feature lets its users shoot video, add filters and music from Instagram’s catalogue. Users will be able to share Reels in Explore, and also on Feed with followers. There are also features to control the camera hands free, add objects from previous clips and speed up or slow down videos. There will be no monetisation avenues for now.

Instagram has partnered with prominent music labels including T-Series, Zee Music Company and Yash Raj films to provide a vast collection of songs to users to create interesting Reels and share with everyone.

At launch, multiple popular creators will populate Reels with content. This includes popular creators like Ammy Virk, Kusha Kapila, Komal Pandey, Gippy Grewal, RJ Abhinav and Ankush Bahuguna. The company is also initiating a hashtag #FeelitReelit that allows users to follow content being posted to Reels.

India is the fourth country, after Brazil, Germany, and France, where this new Instagram video format is being tested. The feature will start rolling out for users in India starting 7:30 PM IST today.

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