TikTok offers a new way to update the For You feed.
TikTok, a popular site for short videos, has added a new feature that lets users update their “For You” feed if they think the suggestions are no longer useful.
In a statement, the company said, “This new feature is part of TikTok’s ongoing efforts to make sure its users have a good time watching videos and also give them a chance to express themselves.”
TikTok users can find a wide range of material, creators, communities, and products through the For You feed. But sometimes people’s suggestions don’t seem to be important anymore or don’t offer enough variety.
To fix this, TikTok is giving users a way to refresh their For You feed suggestions. This lets them see content as if they had just joined TikTok. The system will then show more material based on how people are using it.
This feature adds to the content controls that TikTok users already have. For example, they can filter out videos from their For You feeds that use certain hashtags or phrases, and they can skip videos from a certain artist or that use a certain sound.
If a person turns on the refresh feature, it won’t change any settings they’ve already made or affect the accounts they’re following.
“TikTok is always working to give viewers a good time, and it uses a variety of methods to keep its platform safe.”
“For example, TikTok removes content that breaks its rules, makes inappropriate content ineligible for recommendation in For You feeds, reduces recommendations of topics that could be harmful if seen too often, and filters out content with complex or mature themes from teen accounts.”
In the statement, it was said that one of the challenges of any recommendation system is making sure that the material a viewer sees isn’t too limited or too similar.
The statement says that TikTok is very focused on this task and is working to create a system that weaves together different topics.
The system won’t usually show two videos by the same person or that use the same sound, and TikTok tries not to show people things they’ve already seen.
TikTok knows that people express themselves in a lot of different ways on the app, even when they are sad or going through a hard time.
With this in mind, TikTok’s plan is to get rid of content that supports or glorifies self-harm or other policies, while letting recovery or educational content stay, with limits on how often this kind of content can be recommended.
Over the past year, TikTok has added more languages and made more than 15 changes to its systems to make them better. It’s about trust and safety, and product teams work together to do this. This work is based on university research and talks with experts, like the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital in the US.