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- TikTok’s secret algorithm determines which videos fill a user’s “For You” page.
- The app tracks your viewing time, even if you don’t like or share the videos, WSJ reported.
- It may reveal secret interests or desires that users never directly share with the app.
TikTok monitors how long you hover over certain videos and knows when you watch something twice, even if you aren’t directly interacting with the content, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. This can cause users to spiral down video rabbit holes and watch extreme content, the Journal notes.
TikTok has been downloaded three billion times worldwide, a critical milestone that only Facebook apps have reached before.
The most popular feature of the video sharing app is the For You stream, which is billed as an “endless stream of short videos personalized just for you”. In a corporate blog post last year, TikTok said the top three factors fueling its recommendation system are user interactions, video info, and device and account settings.
“A strong interest indicator, for example if a user finished watching a longer video from start to finish, would have more weight than a weak indicator, for example if the viewer and creator of the video are both in the same country, ”TikTok wrote.
The specific details of the recommendation algorithm are closely monitored by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. The Wall Street Journal created dozens of fake accounts as part of an investigation to find out how exactly the algorithm works. Journalists have found that viewing time – not likes or shares – is the most important information TikTok collects.
Guillaume Chaslot, founder of Algotransparency, an organization whose mission is to ensure transparency about YouTube’s algorithms, told the Journal that it’s important to differentiate the content that users are likely to watch more, from videos that ‘they really appreciate it.
“What we are seeing on TikTok is a bit the same as we have seen on YouTube… the algorithm detects that this depressing content is useful for building engagement and pushes depressing content,” Chaslot said. “So the algorithm is pushing people towards more and more extreme content, so it can push them towards more and more viewing time.”
If users come across content they don’t like, TikTok suggests marking the video as “not interested”. TikTok did not respond to Insider’s request for comment.
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