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

This, in turn, could lead to the collapse of the entire short video ecosystem, creators, users and experts say. As short videos become the primary way young people express themselves online, banning CapCut would stifle the self-expression of millions of young people, the experts and YouTubers note.

Since relaunching in the US in 2018, TikTok has changed the video landscape. Previously, most video content was produced in horizontal or square format. TikTok has made fast-paced, hyper-edited vertical short videos mainstream. As TikTok grew in popularity, short-form videos became the dominant form of expression for millions of content creators and young users online. TikTok-like short video features have been integrated into Instagram with Reels and on YouTube with YouTube Shorts. Even Netflix and LinkedIn have introduced short, vertical content in their algorithmic recommendation feeds.

However, producing this content is nearly impossible for the average user without the editing tools in TikTok's sister video editing app CapCut. While video editing apps and platforms existed before ByteDance launched 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 required hours of painstaking work and technical know-how as easy as clicking a button or two. This has made CapCut an essential tool for small businesses, educators, content creators, and anyone looking to create web-native videos.

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

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

Videos created on TikTok and CapCut are “their own language,” said Nathan Preston, who runs the meme account @Northwest_MCM_Wholesale on Instagram. Preston, like many Instagram creators, uses the creative editing tools of CapCut and TikTok to create his videos, which he then publishes on 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 simpler and more intuitive. We lose something when it disappears. If it goes away, I’ll be less inclined to do whatever I do.”

CapCut has become so synonymous with online videos that its pre-formatted video templates often trend on other platforms like Instagram Reels. “Ninety percent of the Reels I see on Instagram, I can identify the exact CapCut Pro template they used,” Griffin-Ortiz said.

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

According to the developers, no other major social media platform offers the same suite of creative tools as CapCut. Creating subtitles, screen animations and various visual effects is as easy as clicking a button or two in CapCut. Restoring the same effects in Adobe Premiere or After Effects (other editing platforms) would take hours.

“If you do something natively on Instagram, it looks tacky,” Wong said (using the internet slang term to mean tacky and passé).

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

“Most video editing tools require you to have all the resources and a vision in mind. “You really start with a blank slate,” she said. “With CapCut you are about three steps further from this blank slate. You don’t have to be an expert video editor to create truly effective viral content.”

This viral content performs particularly well outside the ByteDance ecosystem. The editing style developed by MrBeast called “Retention Editing” emerged from CapCut.

“Everyone uses the same basic tools,” Noah Kettle, co-founder of Moke Media Co., a video editing and social media monetization consulting firm, told The Post last month. “I've seen 10 to 15 developers use the exact same animated money-on-screen effect, all from CapCut.”

CapCut users have been in an uproar since news of a possible TikTok ban broke. Some said they were worried they would no longer be able to create videos without access to CapCut.

“CapCut enables a unique form of artistry,” Moore said. “Social media is all about connection, and a really big part of connecting with other people is creating content that elicits an emotional response or shows an emotional side of you. Cap-cut tools allow you to quickly and easily create a video to show what's on your mind or what you're thinking, and that will be much more difficult if we don't have CapCut at our disposal.”

Many creatives talked about the possible removal of these creative tools as if there was suddenly a ban on language. They said that while older people seem to have an aversion to short, heavily edited videos, they have become an essential form of expression.

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

YouTubers involved in the world of short-form videos online said resorting to previous tools felt like a step backwards.

“CapCut has changed the way many content creators create videos online,” said Connor Clary, a Gen Z content creator and potter in Kansas City, Missouri. “Before CapCut, short videos were much easier. There were a lot of simple one-take videos. CapCut increased vertical video.”

Len Necefer, who runs the Instagram account @sonoran.avalance.center, which aims to raise awareness of the climate crisis, said CapCut is a crucial tool when it comes to creating media that appeals to young people make people feel at home. “CapCut allows me to create videos and news in a style that reaches Gen Z voters,” he said. “We reached voters and cast their votes, and we used CapCut the most. This allows us to appeal to younger audiences in a more playful way.”

While TikTok is the focus of the law, the provisions of the legislation are written to apply to any app that is considered an “application controlled by a foreign adversary.” The law defines an application controlled by a foreign adversary as any app operated by ByteDance, TikTok, or a subsidiary of either – which presumably includes CapCut.

CapCut has so far received relatively little mention in the debate surrounding the TikTok ban. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wa.), one of the bill's architects, mentioned it twice in her opening statements at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in March, claiming that CapCut was subject to the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, though she provided no evidence to support her claims.

Gahan said the TikTok ban was drastic, but removing CapCut could have just as far-reaching an impact on the online landscape.

If a CapCut ban also applies alongside TikTok, “a type of self-expression will disappear from the Internet,” he said.