Anyone can upload practically anything to the web. And on social media networks, things are even more difficult to police.
TikTok is considered among the most popular social media platforms the world has ever seen. With users uploading anything from soon-to-be-viral contents to challenges, food, lip-syncing to dances, tutorials and more, something is needed to ensure that no one is offended by anyone's posts.
Because people can upload almost anything there, the only way to filter the amount of contents, is through algorithms.
And this time, the app is seeking ways to break up clusters of problematic contents.
To do this, TikTok is changing its 'For You Page' algorithm to prevent users from seeing too many similar videos that could be harmful when viewed in clusters, the company said.
The goal is to steer users away from clusters of videos that might "reinforce a negative personal experience."
Some of the examples include extreme dieting, sadness, and breakup content.
As a platform with more than a billion users, which roughly two-thirds of them are aged 10-29, TikTok is indeed responsible for its users' wellbeing.
In a newsroom post, TikTok said that it is doing that by "diversifying recommendations":
"As we continue to develop new strategies to interrupt repetitive patterns, we're looking at how our system can better vary the kinds of content that may be recommended in a sequence. That's why we're testing ways to avoid recommending a series of similar content — such as around extreme dieting or fitness, sadness or breakups — to protect against viewing too much of a content category that may be fine as a single video but problematic if viewed in clusters."
Just like any other social media platform out there, TikTok’s personalized recommendations algorithm has been the subject of scrutiny.
In TikTok's case, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal demonstrated how the app can push young users down rabbit holes full of sex and drugs, by showing similar content again and again, repeatedly.
By evaluating whether its algorithms inadvertently recommend content that could take a toll on someone's health if it becomes the majority of what they watch, TikTok is tweaking its 'For You' algorithm to help its users' wellbeing.
TikTok said that these efforts are being informed by experts in medicine, clinical psychology, AI ethics and more.
What's more, by tweaking the algorithm, TikTok can also avoid redundancies that could bore users.
This in turn should help increase engagement and user retention.
TikTok noted that the actual implementation could take time and iteration before it gets things right.
"We’ll continue to look at how we can ensure our system is making a diversity of recommendations," the company said.
In addition to the algorithm tweak, TikTok is also announcing a handful of updates to its lineup of camera and editing tools, including new features for its popular Green Screen effect tool, as well as other updates to video enhancements and sound effects.
Among the updates, include support for GIF images for photo and video background.
To make this happen, TikTok has partnered with GIPHY, a Meta-owned company.
With the integration, TikTok users can select from a library of GIFs to use as their background, allowing for different types of videos.
For example, users could record “reaction” videos using a GIF image as the background, or they could use the tool to showcase or reference a particular meme.
TikTok is also expanding its tools to garner even more professional creators. And one of the ways, is by rolling out an option to upload videos in 1080p HD resolution.
For those users, TikTok is also adding a Visual Enhancement button to automatically improve the video’s exposure, low-light conditions and perform color correction.
And lastly, TikTok is also rolling out a musical and audio effects, including features to turn voices and other sounds into either animal sounds or the sound of a musical instrument.