Turns Out, TikTok Employees Have a Secret Button They Can Push to Determine Which Videos Go Viral

Aside from algorithms, looks like, your chance to go viral on TikTok lies in the hands of their very own employees…

TikTok has now confirmed that employees have the ability to manually push out your videos to ensure they go viral.

This secret button is known as “Heating”.

According to internal documents obtained by Forbes, “heating” is described as:

“The heating feature refers to boosting videos into the For You feed through operation intervention to achieve a certain number of video views,” an internal TikTok document titled MINT Heating Playbook explains.

“The total video views of heated videos accounts for a large portion of the daily total video views, around 1-2%, which can have a significant impact on overall core metrics.”

So, basically, if an employee seems to like you or your content, they can make your videos go viral.

Crazy, right?

While this seems cool on some levels rather than just relying on some AI algorithm to pick up your videos, some creators are worried it causes bias and favoritism.

TikToker @hannahjbracken called out this feature saying:

“I think it’s so interesting how it’s always the same types of people who blow up. Blonde, white, super thin… ya know. I don’t know, sounds like some people are a little biased.”

While we all wish it weren’t true, I could see the issue here…

Besides, sources told Forbes that:

TikTok has often used “heating” to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count. This suggests that heating has potentially benefitted some influencers and brands — those with whom TikTok has sought business relationships — at the expense of others with whom it has not.

Forbes

There’s also word that some employees were caught using this feature to push out their spouses videos when that was apparently against company policy… So, yes, it looks as-if, there is abuse to this “heating” feature.

And if you’re wondering if TikTok has directly replied to any of this, they have.

TikTok spokesperson Jamie Favazza wrote to Forbes saying:

“We promote some videos to help diversify the content experience and introduce celebrities and emerging creators to the TikTok community. Only a few people, based in the U.S., have the ability to approve content for promotion in the U.S., and that content makes up approximately .002% of videos in For You feeds.”

So, what do you think? Is this “heating” button a good or bad thing?