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The TikTok algorithm has near-mythic status. No one really knows how it works but it will figure out your deepest content desires in seconds. It drives much of TikTok’s success and the mythology surrounding it — that no matter who you are or what you like, you will be able to find it almost instantly on the app. Little is said about that content’s quality, or what the costs are of serving up personalised content at an unprecedented, unrelenting rate.
This week, a report suggests what some of those costs might be. In a number of experiments, the online trust-checker Newsguard found that TikTok users were shown “false or misleading” information about the war in Ukraine within 40 minutes of signing up to the app, regardless of whether that user ran any relevant searches on the platform. Newsguard report found that when they searched for generic terms relating to the conflict (such as “Ukraine”, “Russia” or “Kyiv”) these users would find disinformation in the top 20 suggested search results.