TikTok is giving users a way to more accurately determine the type of content they see in their feeds, or at least signal to the algorithm what interests them.
Low Content Preferences > Manage Themes (which can be found under “Settings and Privacy”), users can adjust sliders to indicate they want more or less of certain topics on their For You page. Topics include “creative arts,” “current affairs,” “humor,” and more. The sliders are set at a default midpoint at first, and users can tweak it from there.
TikTok’s hyper-targeted For You page is famous for being something of a black box, built on a set of user data that sometimes makes it feel like the algorithm is reading your mind. This new slider feature allows us a peek behind the scenes, especially when it comes to how TikTok ranks content. It’s interesting, for example, that “dance” is a topic all its own and distinct from other arts — not entirely surprising given TikTok’s early role as the dance app for kids.
Over the years, TikTok has rolled out different features to give users a sense of control over its own algorithm. The “Not interested” button on videos is meant to signal to the system that you want to see less of something, and users can also block certain keywords or hashtags from their feeds entirely. Last year, TikTok also began testing a way to reset your For You page to start fresh.
It’s not yet clear how effective adjusting the sliders will be — historically, this type of tool isn’t necessarily a hard and fast rule for determining what kind of content recommendation systems return. Previous research into YouTube’s “dislike” button, for example, has found that the algorithm kept recommending similar content regardless of what was happening.
