TikTok is (c)Heating

jopoy · February 9, 2023

Summary

TikTok staff artificially bump up certain posts to artificially make them "go viral"

Quotes

Quote

TikTok and ByteDance employees regularly engage in “heating,” a manual push that ensures specific videos “achieve a certain number of video views,” according to six sources and documents reviewed by Forbes.

"“The heating feature refers to boosting videos into the For You feed through operation intervention to achieve a certain number of video views,” an internal TikTok document titled MINT Heating Playbook explains. “The total video views of heated videos accounts for a large portion of the daily total video views, around 1-2%, which can have a significant impact on overall core metrics.” TikTok has never publicly disclosed that it engages in heating — and while all tech giants engage, to some degree, in efforts to amplify specific posts to their users, they usually clearly label when they do so."

My thoughts

It shouldn't be a big surprise - but yes - TikTok manipulates viral video-ness but make it look like they are "organically" gaining virality #youaretheproduct #wethesheeple

Sources

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/?sh=44a251cb6bfd

Edited February 9, 2023 by jopoy

Ripred · February 9, 2023

Haven't noticed this happening in the last decade?

TetraSky · February 9, 2023

Like every other big social media company, pushing what they want to people who couldn't care less.

Heliian · February 9, 2023

Isn't that really how most sites have worked for ever?

I'm not a tt user but I would imagine that's how their platform operates.

Sponsors pay to have their videos pushed up.

jopoy · February 9, 2023

. @Heliian - I think that they were promoting the idea that the viral videos got the most views, but "heating" artificially pumps up the view count to get it infront of more people - and there's no indication that it's actually sponsored. Also - TikTok staff regularly use the "heat" function to pump up their own tiktok videos and those of friends and relatives... making it look like there are millions of views already - right out of the gate...