A TikTok photo-sharing app is allegedly in the works. Can it compete with Instagram?

Between tech behemoth Instagram copying its best features (successfully) and a potential ban looming, TikTok is being attacked on all fronts — but it’s fighting back.

TikTok might be developing a new “TikTok Photos” app, according to The SpAndroid, who spotted references to “TikTok Photos” in the back-end code of the current TikTok app. A potential new welcome message allegedly reads: “TikTok Photos will be launched soon, we hope to help you gain new audiences in the new app. If the switch is on, we’ll sync your public photos to the new app, whether you close the pop-up or not.” TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It kind of looks like TikTok is copying Instagram’s copying strategy, which it used to copy TikTok’s short-form videos to create Reels. Copying isn’t new for TikTok, which already has a “photo mode” for slideshows of still images and attempted a pretty lame Instagram-like app called Lemon8. Innovation for social media platforms is just a constant cycle of one app stealing ideas from another app until all apps become the same app. Love!

This leak comes as TikTok faces its most aggressive battle yet. For the first time since 2020, TikTok had fewer new app downloads in 2023 than Instagram, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower reported by the Financial Times. In 2023, TikTok downloads grew just 4 percent compared to Instagram’s 20 percent — and part of that growth can be attributed to Instagram’s copycat strategy.

All the while, TikTok is also facing a potential ban. Lawmakers are working to pass the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” which would ban TikTok and all other apps based in China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran from U.S. app stores. President Joe Biden said that if Congress does pass the ban, he’d sign it into law. In response, TikTok encouraged its U.S. users to call their representatives to “stop a TikTok shutdown.”

We don’t know if TikTok’s attempt to copy Instagram will work as well as Instagram’s copycat playbook has. But the app is pulling out all the stops to maintain its hold — and relevancy — on U.S. users.