Reddit Is The Latest Social Platform To Launch A TikTok Clone

Short-form videos that viewers can rapidly swipe through are the latest craze and Reddit has gotten in on the trend. The company is expanding its video platform with a new iOS app feature that is similar to TikTok. With this new capability, users can rapidly swipe through a feed of videos while interacting in certain ways.

TikTok popularized the rapid-access short-form video platform, enabling users to quickly swipe through a huge number of short videos for essentially endless entertainment. Snapchat and Instagram both have their own alternatives with the same general design; likewise, YouTube recently rolled out its Shorts in a broad way.

For its part, Reddit remains a largely text-based platform where media like images and videos can be shared. In its more recent history, the company also expanded into live streaming video broadcasts on its "Reddit Public Access Network" (RPAN). This time around, it is leveraging the existing videos on its platform to offer a TikTok-like experience.

The feature is apparently only available to those who use the company's iOS app at this time. Users will see a new button near the search bar that opens the stream of short-form videos; users can swipe up to watch a new video, plus there's the option to share the content.

Reddit includes some of its platform-specific features in its new TikTok-like service, including the ability to upvote and downvote videos, give them an award, and see which subreddit they were originally posted in. Users will see videos pulled from the subreddits to which they subscribe and others like them, which should help prevent unwanted surprises given the platform's vast variety of content.

The feature is currently rolling out to iOS users, but it remains unclear when it will also be made available to users on other platforms.