By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-09 13:01:44 | Updated at 2025-01-09 22:44:04
9 hours ago
An executive from Chinese social media giant ByteDance played down the role of its content-recommendation algorithms in creating so-called filter bubbles, as the company faces intense scrutiny from both Beijing and Washington.
TikTok’s Chinese sibling Douyin “isn’t motivated to create so-called cocoons”, said ByteDance executive Li Liang in an interview published on Tuesday by Chinese outlet Ifeng News. On the contrary, the app is impelled to break filter bubbles because having diverse content helps retain users in the long run, according to Li, vice-president of the Douyin unit, which is also in charge of Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao.
“The one metric that matters for Douyin is long-term user retention,” he said.
TikTok and Douyin have captured the attention of more than 2 billion users worldwide by tailoring each person’s content feed according to their viewing interest. ByteDance’s powerful, yet secretive, algorithms are considered so valuable that the Chinese government has stipulated that they cannot be sold to foreign entities.
However, such algorithms have also stoked concerns that users are only exposed to information and opinions they agree with, generating what are known as filter bubbles or information cocoons.
Li described ByteDance’s recommendation system as a combination of algorithms and strategies, such as collaborative filter – a technique used to curate content for a certain user based on the preference or interest of other users exhibiting similar behaviours.
