TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral

TikTok confirmed Forbes that some of its US employees have the ability to boost videos to “introduce celebrities and up-and-coming creators to the TikTok community.” The statement is part of a report on TikTok’s “Heating” button, which Forbes dit can be used to put selected videos on users’ For You pages, helping to increase views by bypassing the algorithm that’s supposed to drive the TikTok experience.

Jamie Favazza, spokesperson for TikTok, said Forbes that the increase in the number of views of particular videos is not the only reason for the heating. TikTok will also “promote certain videos to help diversify the content experience” (read: make sure your feed isn’t entirely made up of one or two trends), he said. Favazza also suggests that TikTok doesn’t do this all that often, saying only “0.002% of videos in For You streams” are heated. According to an internal document obtained by Forbeshowever, heated videos are said to represent “about 1-2%” of “total daily video views”.

Heated videos don’t come with a tag to show they’ve been boosted by TikTok like ads or sponsored posts do, according to the report. Instead, they appear like any other videos the algorithm would have selected for you.

The news is not necessarily a surprise. There have been reports for years that TikTok has used promises of promoted content to convince politicians and businesses to use its platform, and businesses, especially in the music industry, have made no secret of using the platform to promote their brands.

TikTok is also said to be far from the only social media company boosting videos in unnatural ways. Facebook reportedly knew it was showing an inflated view count and didn’t fix it right away to help attract advertisers and media companies to its platform. (He ended up paying $40 million to settle a lawsuit over the matter.) While it’s not exactly the same storyline — TikTok videos actually seem to be getting genuine views, even if they don’t go viral in a way. organic – the effect could be similar; people end up thinking they’ll do better on TikTok than they actually will.

It also means that TikTok picks winners and losers: creators and brands can lose a spot on someone’s For You page to someone who has a closer relationship with the company. According to Forbesthere have been incidents of employees heating up content they shouldn’t have, promoting videos from friends, partners, and even their own accounts.

Creators could also lose interest in the platform if their videos underperform compared to boosted ones, as TikTok’s lack of transparency around the heating makes it difficult to tell which videos made it to the top organically.