Following the Crowd: Tik Tok, Dominant Content, and Their Influence
As we learned in lecture, the Herd Experiment proves that the actions and decisions of a large group may solely be dependent on the behavior of the first two people of the group. It is interesting to analyze the algorithms of Tik Tok through the lens of herd behavior. According to Tiernan Ray, the algorithm itself at Tik Tok further intensifies the effect of herd mentality. The leaked algorithm involves a few components likes, comments, and playtime. Despite no further insight into how exactly their predictions are “driven by machine learning”, the code writes “Plike X Vlike + Pcomment X Vcomment + Eplaytime X Vplaytime + Pplay X Vplay” (Ray). While we do not know what P, V, or E is, we can understand that the algorithm is heavily reliant on other users’ behavior. Some hypotheses have stated that V may stands for value, and that each item is weighted differently towards a final score (Ray). This means that the behavior of other users is valued in the algorithm that decides what content gets more displayed on whose screen. The underlying assumption then becomes that, if a piece of content is well liked by the majority that views it, the next user is more likely to enjoy it, too. Then, it gets pushed to a bigger audience, which fundamentally assimilates Herd Mentality.
If you see that two friends of yours have reposted or liked a video, you are more tempted to like it because you assume that there is valid reasoning behind the likes. Even if the joke is not necessarily your taste, you may choose to interact with the video regardless simply because it is well liked by others. While you could argue that you make your own independent decisions about whether you like a video or not, the heart of the algorithm already subscribes to the crowd for you. You are presented videos because a lot of people have interacted with it, and by just watching it, you have interacted with it as well (albeit not knowing how much a viewing weighs). On a large scale, this snowballs into content categories and filters out a lot of content, creating dominant content that may start new trends, influences people to behave or speak differently in real life, or new pop-culture references. In that sense, Tik Tok has tremendous power in shaping how its users are influenced, but mostly importantly of all, the users influence each other, and everyone gets put in a herd. When you are some of the first likes or comments, perhaps you can say you are an independent thinker on what content you like, but inevitably, you become not only a follower of your favorite creators but also of the crowd.
Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/tiktok-doesnt-read-your-mind-it-makes-your-mind/