Photo Credit: Loops.Video
TikTok is facing increasing scrutiny in the United States—both for its China-owned origins and the harm it can do to young minds. Will something else replace it if the United States does ban the platform? Loops is hoping to be in the position to absorb migrating users if a TikTok ban does happen.
We’ve already seen how quickly traditional social media can shed users after Elon Musk bought Twitter. The newly renamed X/Twitter was blocked in Brazil from August 30, 2024 to October 8, 2024 amid a dispute. Musk refused to appoint a legal representative for X/Twitter (a requirement for businesses in Brazil) and so it was suspended in the country. Twitter’s fediverse competitor Bluesky gained over one million new Brazilian users during that legal row.
The creators of Loops may be hoping to capitalize on a similar situation if TikTok ends up banned in the United States. The platform began accepting signups last week, allowing users to share short, looping videos. While Loops is not currently open source or integrated with the ActivityPub protocol that powers other fediverse apps like Mastodon and Threads—the process is in motion.
TechCrunch reports that the new app was developed by Daniel Supernault, the same developer behind the federated Instagram rival Pixelfed. Loops is running as a sub-project under Pixelfed, making it similar to Instagram’s Reels feature. While not reliant on investor financing, Loops says it will seek user donations via Patreon and other platforms to keep it funded in its early days, with a potential grant funding the first year of development. The app is aimed at users who are 13 and older who want to post short, looping videos (think Vine and TikTok before it became a YouTube competitor) as well as like and comment on them.
So how will Loops solve the moderation problem that TikTok currently has? According to the developer, videos published on Loops will be held for moderation if the poster has a low trust score. Users who post videos regularly and earn a high trust score from their videos will be able to skip this queue immediately. The trust score is also used to hide problematic comments on videos and apply content warnings.
Users who are interested can sign-up to be invited, though it may take a while. As for apps, the developer says an APK for Android is coming (bypassing the Google Play Store), while an iOS app will be available on Apple’s TestFlight service when it is approved. No web interface is planned for now—which is exactly how TikTok got its start before blowing up.