Facebook's experimental feature lets you Lip Sync Battle your friends

June 05, 2018

Rockstar wannabes, listen up: Facebook has started testing a new feature that lets you lip sync to songs -- live. Unlike other lip syncing apps wherein you'd have to upload a recorded video, the social network's experimental offering allows you to put on a show in real time. Just choose the lip sync option when you start a Live video and use the "Live with" feature if you want to share the stage with (or challenge) friends. Since the social network recently inked partnerships with both indie and major labels, including Universal, Warner and Sony (the largest publisher in the world), you'll have quite a few popular songs to choose from.

The feature has hundreds of songs in its selection -- available titles include old favorites from artists like Guns N' Roses, as well as new hits like Havana by Camila Cabello, Happier by Ed Sheeran and God's Plan by Drake -- and Facebook plans to keep growing that library. Whatever it is you choose, the track's artist and title will be highlighted on the video, though you can write your own description, as well.

Lip Sync Live works with Facebook's camera effects, by the way, so you can choose a mask, a filter or a background that suits your song choice or slap one on to prevent your viewers from noticing your video's lack of production values. While it's only being tested in a handful of markets for now, the company plans to make it available worldwide over time.

Facebook is also in the process of rolling out the ability to upload videos with copyrighted songs. So long as the tune is one of the millions of tracks licensed through its partnerships, you can use it without getting your video yanked. A spokesperson told us that you'll get a notification whether the song in your video is available or has any restrictions within seconds of posting. In case the song you chose isn't included in Facebook's library, you'll be able to remove the music and post the video without the tune. Similar to Lip Sync Live, this feature will eventually be available worldwide.

In addition to those two, 1 Infinity Loop plans to begin testing the ability to add music to Facebook Stories in the coming months. Plus, the company promises to think of more ways you can use music on the platform. Whether any of them can entice Instagram-and-Snapchat-loving teens to come back to the social network, however, remains to be seen.