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With the passage of the bill that could effectively ban TikTok, ByteDance’s other major product, the short-form video editor CapCut, is in jeopardy.

Multiple House aides familiar with the bill <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/27/tiktok-bill-isnt-just-about-tiktok/" target=_blank>confirmed to The Washington Post</a> that it is their understanding that CapCut would be subject to the same divest-or-ban requirement as TikTok.

That, in turn, could lead to the collapse of the entire short-form video ecosystem, say creators, users and experts. With short-form video becoming the primary way young people express themselves online, a ban of CapCut would stifle self expression for millions of young people, the experts and creators note.

Europe TikTok

The popular app TikTok is preparing to<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/25/tiktok-legal-battle-is-certain/" target=_blank> fight for its life in court</a> after President Biden signed a law calling for its forced sale or ban in the United States. See <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/technology/how-the-potential-tiktok-ban-might-affect-you/2024/04/25/389ee8f5-4b9e-4c7a-918c-9d5fd1626733_video.html" target=_blank>how a potential ban might affect users</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/23/tiktok-ban-us-start-explained/" target=_blank>when the TikTok ban could take affect</a>. 

Since relaunching in the United States in 2018, TikTok has transformed the video landscape. Before then, most video content was produced in a horizontal or square format. TikTok mainstreamed fast-paced, hyper-edited, short-form vertical video. As TikTok soared in popularity, short-form video became the dominant form of expression for millions of content creators and young users across the internet. TikTok-like short-form video features were integrated into Instagram with Reels and on YouTube with YouTube Shorts. Even Netflix and LinkedIn have rolled out short-form, vertical content in their algorithmic recommendation feeds.

Producing this content, however, is nearly impossible for the average user without the suite of editing tools in TikTok’s sister video editing app, CapCut. While video editing apps and platforms existed before ByteDance introduced CapCut in April 2020, most were clunky, poorly designed or aimed at a more professional audience, such as Adobe Premiere.

The app allows any user, regardless of whether they have a TikTok account, to easily create incredibly complex and engaging videos on their phone. It makes editing tasks that previously would have taken hours of arduous work and technical know how as easy as clicking a button or two. That’s made CapCut an essential tool for small businesses, educators, content creators and anyone looking to create internet-native video.

“CapCut is the foundation for all the short-form vertical video on the internet,” said Brendan Gahan, CEO and co-founder of Creator Authority, an influencer marketing agency in Southern California. “People start on CapCut, then post on YouTube Shorts, Instagram, everywhere.”

Sam Griffin-Ortiz, a video editor and multimedia artist in Oakland, Calif., said he would liken CapCut’s impact on social media “to the impact of the electric guitar on music in the 20th century.”

Videos created on TikTok and CapCut are “their own language,” said Nathan Preston, who operates the meme account @Northwest_MCM_Wholesale on Instagram. Preston, like many Instagram creators, leverages CapCut and TikTok’s suite of creative editing tools to make his videos, which he then posts to other platforms.

“I’m a trained design professional,” he said. “I have Adobe Premiere, I know how to use Final Cut and all that stuff. CapCut is easier, more intuitive. We’re losing something if it goes away. If it goes away, it will make me less inclined to make whatever the hell I make.”

CapCut has become so synonymous with online videos that its pre-formatted video templates frequently trend across other platforms, such as Instagram Reels. “Ninety percent of the Reels I see on Instagram I can tell the exact CapCut pro template they’ve used,” said Griffin-Ortiz.

Michael Wong, the founder of @AsianVerified, a humor media company that operates on Instagram and YouTube, said that CapCut is essential to making content that performs well online. “It’s a specific style,” he said. “You’ll see ads on Reddit and all over made to mimic the CapCut look.”

No other major social media platform offers the same suite of creative tools that CapCut does, creators said. Creating captions, on-screen animations and visual effects are all as easy as clicking a button or two on CapCut; re-creating those same effects in Adobe Premiere or After Effects (other editing platforms) would take hours.

“If you make something natively on Instagram it looks <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/style/cheugy.html" target=_blank>cheugy</a>,” said Wong, using the internet slang term to mean corny and passé.

Lauren Moore, the founder and creator of Book Huddle, an online book community, said content created in CapCut consistently outperforms content made using other programs. The tools the platform offers automatically make nearly any piece of content more engaging, she explained.

“Most video editing tools require you to have all the assets and a vision in mind; you’re really starting with a blank slate,” she said. “With CapCut, it takes you about three steps ahead from that blank slate. You don’t have to be a knowledgeable video editor to be able to create really effective viral content.”

That viral content performs particularly well outside the ByteDance ecosystem. The style of editing pioneered by MrBeast, called “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/30/video-editing-mrbeast-retention/" target="_blank">retention editing</a>,” was birthed from CapCut.

“Everyone’s using the same basic tools,” Noah Kettle, co-founder of Moke Media Co., a video editing and social media monetization consultancy, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/30/video-editing-mrbeast-retention/" target="_blank">told The Post last month</a>. “I’ve seen 10 to 15 creators use the exact same animated money-on-screen effect, and it’s all from CapCut.”

CapCut users are scrambling since news of the potential TikTok ban broke. Some said they were worried they wouldn’t be able to continue to make videos without access to CapCut.

“There’s a unique form of artistry that CapCut enables,” said Moore. “Social media is all about connection, and a really big part of connecting with other people is creating content that elicits an emotional reaction or shows an emotional side of yourself. By using cap cuts tools, you can quickly and easily create a video to demonstrate what’s on your mind, or how you’re feeling about things, and that is going to be so much harder to do if we don’t have CapCut at our disposal.”

Many creators spoke about the potential removal of these creative tools as if there were suddenly a ban on language. They said that while older people seem to harbor a hostility toward short form, highly edited video, it has become an essential mode of expression.

“It’s like you’re taking away a language from people,” said Griffin-Ortiz. “Banning CapCut would be the book burning of the digital age. I think we’ll look back on this time and history and see it in a lens very similar to book burnings.”

Creators who are immersed in the short form online video world said that reverting to previous tools would feel like a step back.

“CapCut has transformed the way a lot of content creators create video online,” said Connor Clary, a Gen Z content creator and potter in Kansas City, Mo. “Before CapCut existed, short-form video was a lot simpler. It was a lot of basic, one take videos. CapCut elevated vertical video.”

Len Necefer, who runs the Instagram account @sonoran.avalance.center aimed at raising awareness around the climate crisis, said that CapCut is a crucial tool when it comes to creating pieces of media that feel native to young people. “CapCut allows me to craft videos and messaging in a style that reaches Gen Z voters,” he said. “We’ve been doing voter outreach and turning out the vote, and that’s where we’ve used CapCut the most. It allows us to target the younger audience in a more playful way.”

While TikTok is the law’s main focus, the terms of the legislation are written to apply to any app that qualifies as a “foreign adversary controlled application.” The law <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/815/text" target=_blank>defines</a> a foreign adversary controlled application as any app that’s operated by ByteDance, TikTok, or a subsidiary of either of the two — which would presumably include CapCut.

CapCut has so far received relatively little mention in the debate surrounding the TikTok ban. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), one of the bill’s architects, did mention it twice in <a href="https://mcmorris.house.gov/posts/mcmorris-rodgers-on-tiktok-foreign-interference-and-manipulation-is-not-welcome-here" target=_blank>her opening statements</a> at a March hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, claiming that CapCut is subject to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, though she provided no evidence to support her claims.

Gahan said the TikTok ban is drastic, but cutting off CapCut could have just as far-reaching impact on the online landscape.

If a CapCut ban were to pass alongside TikTok, “there’s a mode of self expression that’s going to be disappearing from the internet,” he said.

Taylor Lorenz is a columnist at The Washington Post covering technology and online culture. Before joining The Post, she was a technology reporter for the New York Times. Previously, she was a technology reporter at the Atlantic and the Daily Beast. 

Taylor Lorenz

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ByteDance’s CapCut video editor could also be affected by the TikTok law

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