X Is Building Tools to Help You Make Your Own Videos Instead of Sharing Old Ones

X rolled out a new video editor and recording toolkit for iPhone users on July 6, 2026. The goal is straightforward: get people to shoot and edit videos directly on X instead of pulling in old videos from elsewhere and reposting them TechCrunch.

The new tools include automatic captions in multiple languages that you can customize, and a green-screen feature that lets you place yourself in front of photos from your phone or from posts you've seen on X. Nikita Bier, who leads product work at X, announced the update on the platform itself x.com/nikitabier.

Why does this matter?

Bier was direct about the problem X is trying to solve: a lot of the top-performing videos on X aren't original. Creators are posting videos that have been shared before, sometimes circulating for five years or longer. When video accounts for nearly half of all the views people see on X — which is what Bier said — that's a substantial chunk of the platform's attention going to recycled content TechCrunch.

X has two reasons to care. First, if people are making videos on the platform itself, X can track them, organize them, and build them into its recommendation system in ways it can't with content that just passes through from somewhere else. Second, video engagement drives advertising money, and X wants to make sure it benefits from the videos that perform best, not other platforms.

The captions in multiple languages also do something practical: they make videos readable when the audio is muted, which is the default for most people scrolling. That means a single video can reach more viewers without needing to be remade for different languages.

What the green-screen tooling signals

The green-screen feature is worth noting because it's not a basic editing tool — it's borrowed directly from TikTok's playbook. On TikTok, a popular format is creators reacting to or commenting on an image while they appear on screen. X is importing that exact workflow, which suggests the company is not just trying to catch up on simple trimming and cropping, but matching specific video formats that work well on other platforms.

What we don't know yet

X didn't say when Android users will get these tools, or how many people are actually reposting videos right now. The company also hasn't explained how videos made with the new editor will be treated differently from reposts in X's recommendations system — whether they'll get a boost, or whether X will try to downrank reposted content. Bier said more updates are coming in the weeks ahead, which suggests X views this as the opening move, not the finished product.

The bigger picture

Every major video platform has faced the same problem. YouTube built its early growth partly on clips of television shows. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts both filled up quickly with videos taken from TikTok. When the content that draws the most engagement is also the least original, platforms eventually have to pick a direction: either invest in tools that make original creation easier, or try harder to detect and remove reposts.

X's choice to build creation tools rather than rely only on detection and removal is the more constructive path. Making it easier and faster to shoot and edit on the platform tends to shift what creators do more durably than punishment does. Whether that works will depend on whether X actually rewards native videos in its recommendation system — which is the detail the company hasn't yet confirmed.