The TikTok community is diverse and cuts across generations, ranging from teenagers to grandparents and everyone in between. For this reason, TikTok is built with these audiences in mind, limiting features by age, empowering its community with content controls, and supporting families with parental controls. Now The platform announces new features and technologies that will help users customize their viewing preferences and continue to have a safe and entertaining experience on TikTok.
A new tool to personalize content
Part of what makes the TikTok experience unique is the ability for people to discover new interests, creators, and ideas. The company designs its recommendation system with security in mind, as the content in the For You Feed from someone may come from a creator you prefer not to follow, or be related to some category of interest you may not share. For example, certain categories of content they may not be recommended, and users can use the “I’m not interested” feature to automatically skip similar videos in the future.
To empower users to decide how they want their viewing experience to be, TikTok has launched a tool that allows users to automatically filter the videos they don’t want to see in their For You or Following Feeds, using words or hashtags. Whether a user just finished a project at home and no longer wants to watch DIY tutorials, or wants to see fewer dairy or meat recipes to focus on plant-based meals. This feature will be available to everyone in the coming weeks.
More TikTok efforts to diversify recommendations
TikTok’s goal is to have a positive role in the lives of the people who use the app. Therefore, the platform is committed to fostering an environment in which people can express themselves on a wide variety of topics, while being protected from potentially challenging viewing experiences. Last year TikTok started testing ways to avoid recommend a series of similar content on topics that can be positive on occasion, but potentially problematic if viewed repeatedly, such as topics related to dieting, extreme physical exercise, sadness and other topics related to well-being. Additionally, TikTok has been testing ways to recognize if its system may be unintentionally recommending a smaller variety of content to a user.
As a result of testing in the US, TikTok has improved the viewing experience so viewers now watch fewer videos on these topics at a time. From the platform, work continues in this direction and taking into account all the nuances that exist. For example, some types of content can have both uplifting and sad prisms, such as eating disorder recovery content.
TikTok introduces Content Levels to further safeguard the viewing experience
TikTok is continually working to create a safe and enjoyable viewing experience. In this sense, the Community Rules they are fundamental, since they establish what is and is not allowed on the platform. Within these strict policies, TikTok understands that there may be users who want to avoid certain categories of content based on their personal preferences. Or, for teenage members of the community, some content may contain topics that may be complex or require a higher level of maturity, which may reflect personal experiences or real-world events that are intended for an older audience.
Aware of this, TikTok has started working to create a new way of organizing content based on thematic maturity.
Many people will be familiar with similar systems from their use in the film, TV, or gaming industry, and we’re building this system with them in mind, also knowing that we need to develop a unique approach to TikTok.
Cormac Keenan, Director of Trust & Safety at TikTok.
In the coming weeks, TikTok will begin rolling out a first version to help prevent content with topics that may require a higher level of maturity from reaching audiences under the age of 18. Where a video is found to contain subject matter that may be complex or requires a higher level of maturity, for example, fictional scenes that may be too frightening or intense for younger audiences, a needs-based level will be assigned accordingly. the age and maturity that it may have, to the video to prevent those under 18 years of age from seeing it in what is their experience within TikTok. The platform has focused on further safeguarding the teen-first experience and in the coming months plans to add new functionality to provide filtering options for detailed content for your entire community.
