It is reported that TikTok has a “secret” button that employees can use to “warm up” videos and make them viral, and this has apparently led to huge successes.
As TikTok has moved away from its early days with synced videos featuring songs and dance numbers, it has become home to a wide range of content. At the moment, almost all interests and niches are taken into account.
Naturally, it has become a popular platform for viral videos, just like YouTube in the early days of its existence. We’ve seen everything from breakup drama to fights and unusual quizzes that started on TikTok before spreading to other platforms.
However, if you were wondering why some videos seem to be gaining more popularity than others, it turns out that TikTok — well, ByteDance, the owners — have the ability to “warm up” videos and promote them to more users.
TikTok apparently has a “warm up” button to make the video go viral
This is stated in the Forbes report, which says that they talked to six current and former TikTok employees, and also showed internal documents of the outlet.
According to a Forbes report, TikTok employees can “secretly select certain videos manually” in a process they call “heating up,” which promotes them to users more strongly than other publications. These videos can account for almost 2% of the platform’s total views per day, which they call a “significant impact.”
Apparently, this was used to encourage influencers and brands to use the platform by inflating the number of views in order to establish partnerships between themselves and TikTok.
TikTok told Forbes that heating is used to “diversify the perception of content” and that only “a few” employees in the US can approve its use. However, it is assumed that it will also be used to “promote important information”.
Some US states have already banned the use of TikTok on government devices for cybersecurity reasons, but it is unknown whether this will increase after the publication of the report.
