Post Five: THE TIKTOK ALGORITHM

This week we discussed algorithms and how they cater to individual users. As someone who works very closely with social media and influencers, I definitely catch myself being advertised personalized content such as fashion, vegan recipes, and aesthetic New York City influencers.

Though most, if not all, media platforms use an algorithm, the platform I most closely associate it with is TikTok. My research question I posed was how does TikTok learn about your interests?

After reading their website, I learned that TikTok provides basic, general content at first, but the more you interact with videos--liking, commenting, sending or watching all the way through/more than once, the more it appears on your For You page.

They say,

"TikTok's mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. We're building a global community where you can create and share authentically, discover the world, and connect with others. The For You feed is part of what enables that connection and discovery. It's central to the TikTok experience and where most of our users spend their time.

When you open TikTok and land in your For You feed, you're presented with a stream of videos curated to your interests, making it easy to find content and creators you love. This feed is powered by a recommendation system that delivers content to each user that is likely to be of interest to that particular user. Part of the magic of TikTok is that there's no one For You feed – while different people may come upon some of the same standout videos, each person's feed is unique and tailored to that specific individual."