TikTok told Forbes that some of its employees in the US can choose what videos to boost to “introduce celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community.”
TikTok admitted that after Forbes reported about the platform’s “Heating” button, which is used to place selected videos on the For You pages of users. That function helps boost the views of videos that have not been selected by the algorithm TikTok uses to recommend content.
According to a spokesperson for the video-sharing platform, increasing the views of selected videos is not the only purpose the “heating” function serves. They said the function helps “promote some videos to help diversify the content experience.”
They further claimed that only “.002% of videos in For You feeds” are heated. But according to Forbes, “heated” videos account for “around 1-2 percent” of videos in the feeds.
