Communications of the ACM
How TikTok Reads Your Mind
TikTok displays an endless stream of videos and, unlike the social media apps it is increasingly displacing, serves more as entertainment than as a connection to friends.
Credit: Lionel Bonaventure/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
There are four main goals for TikTok's algorithm: , (), , and , which the company translates as "user value," "long-term user value," "creator value," and "platform value."
That set of goals is drawn from a frank and revealing document for company employees that offers new details of how the most successful video app in the world has built such an entertaining — some would say addictive — product.
The document, headed "TikTok Algo 101," was produced by TikTok's engineering team in Beijing. A company spokeswoman, Hilary McQuaide, confirmed its authenticity, and said it was written to explain to nontechnical employees how the algorithm works. The document offers a new level of detail about the dominant video app, providing a revealing glimpse both of the app's mathematical core and insight into the company's understanding of human nature — our tendencies toward boredom, our sensitivity to cultural cues — that help explain why it's so hard to put down. The document also lifts the curtain on the company's seamless connection to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, at a time when the U.S. Department of Commerce is preparing a report on whether TikTok poses a security risk to the U.S.
From The New York Times
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