Instagram Reels, Snapchat Spotlights, and Facebook Stories all feature shorter video formats because they want to be TikTok … but TikTok wants to be YouTube? We all want what we can’t have. The ByteDance-owned app rolled out a maximum video length of three minutes last July, up from its original one-minute time constraint. Now, TikTok has tripled its maximum video length, allowing creators to post videos running to up to ten minutes. A TikTok representative said they hope it will “unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world,†in a statement shared by Variety. Social-media consultant Matt Navarra confirmed the global rollout of ten-minute TikToks in a Monday morning Tweet, before joking that users will now be able to watch even “longer videos full of misinformation.â€
With the new time allotments, TikTok will be able to compete with longer-form content sites like YouTube by compelling users to spend more time on the app, as if it weren’t addictive enough. However, lengthier TikToks could alienate a younger audience that was drawn to the platform bv its bite-size format. The switch also has the potential to mess with TikTok’s impeccable algorithm; The Verge reported that longform content could limit how much data the app can collect on user preferences. At least for now, users can finally condense their exhaustive ten-part true-crime investigations into a single video.