TikTok Overhauls Comment Section with Voice Comments and Other New Interactive Features

TikTok has officially announced a comprehensive upgrade to its comment section features, rolling out four new interactive capabilities in phases: voice comments, comment polls, photo carousel comments, and Live Photo comments. The upgrade draws on functional designs from instant messaging apps, aiming to boost user dwell time and interaction frequency in the comment section, and shift the comment area from a one-way feedback scenario to a space for diverse interactions.

According to the platform's official blog, sound and music are core product features of TikTok, and the newly launched voice comment feature will extend the audio interaction experience to the comment scenario. Users can tap the microphone icon in the comment box to record audio content of up to one minute for publication, and all users visiting the video can click to listen. Voice comments are subject to the same community guidelines as other content on the platform. The platform identifies violating content through a combination of human moderation, automated detection tools, and speech-to-text transcription technology. This feature will be rolled out to users aged 18 and above globally over the next month.

The creator-exclusive comment poll feature, which was previously only available to a subset of users, is now accessible globally. Creators can add a poll module when commenting on videos they have posted, with up to 5 options and customizable voting durations. Poll results can be viewed in real time directly in the comment section, and the feature can be used for scenarios such as soliciting ideas for the next video, selecting outfit styles, and determining recipe directions.

The photo carousel comment feature supports uploading up to 9 photos per comment, an upgrade from the platform's previous limit of one photo per comment. This feature will be rolled out to global users over the next month. The Live Photo comment feature is now available globally, where Live Photos uploaded by users will first display a short dynamic effect before showing the full image.

This article was first published on the official Ebrun website.