TikTok has confirmed to Forbes that some of its US employees have the ability to boost videos in order to āintroduce celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community.ā The statement comes as part of a report about TikTokās āHeatingā button, which Forbes says can be used to put selected videos onto usersā For You pages, helping boost views by sidestepping the algorithm that supposedly drives the TikTok experience.
Jamie Favazza, a spokesperson for TikTok, told Forbes that increasing views to particular videos isnāt the only reason for heating. TikTok will also āpromote some videos to help diversify the content experienceā (read: make sure your feed isnāt entirely made up of one or two trends), he said. Favazza also suggests TikTok doesnāt do it that often, claiming only ā.002% of videos in For You feedsā are heated. According to an internal document obtained by Forbes, however, heated videos reportedly make up āaround 1-2 percentā of ātotal daily video views.ā
TikTokās heating can make creators and brands feel like theyāre winning at the platform
Heated videos donāt come with a label to show that theyāve been boosted by TikTok like ads or sponsored posts do, according to the report. Instead, they appear like any other videos that the algorithm wouldāve selected for you.
The news isnāt necessarily a surprise. There have been reports for years that TikTok used promises of promoted content to convince politicians and businesses to use its platform, and companies, especially in the music industry, have made no secret of using the platform to promote their brands.
TikTok would also be far from the only social media company to boost videos unnaturally. Facebook allegedly knew it was showing inflated view counts and didnāt fix it right away to help entice advertisers and media companies to its platform. (It ended up paying $40 million to settle a lawsuit over the issue.) While thatās not exactly the same scenario ā TikTok videos do actually seem to get genuine views, even if theyāre not going viral organically ā the effect could be similar; people end up thinking that theyāll do better on TikTok than they actually will.
It also means that TikTok is picking winners and losers: creators and brands may lose a spot on someoneās For You page to someone that has a tighter relationship with the company. According to Forbes, there have been incidents where employees heated content they shouldnāt have, promoting videos from friends, partners, and even their own accounts.
Creators might also lose interest in the platform if their videos underperform compared to ones that are being boosted, as TikTokās lack of transparency around heating makes it hard to tell which videos got to the top organically.