To personalize or not to personalize?
The famous question - to be or not to be, came to mind again thanks to a Wall Street Journal video about how TikTok is finding content which one might consider highly addictive.
You’ll recall that TikTok is the company which rose to larger public awareness during the President Trump administration, almost exactly a year ago. If that doesn’t ring a bell, TikTok is another social media platform which allows you to upload short videos with simple descriptions, including hashtags. Started in 2016, it quickly became popular with hundreds of millions people aged 25 and younger.
One of the app’s claims to fame is its algorithm. This algorithm can identify which content you like and keep serving you more of it. That’s how it keeps you on their platform, so you can see as much advertising as possible.
The 13-minute WSJ video was entitled INSIDE TIKTOK’S HIGHLY SECRETIVE ALGORITHM. The sub-headline reads: 'Investigation: How TikTok's Algorithm Figures Out Your Deepest Desires'. These titles might leave you to believe the following: 'This WSJ video investigation reveals how the video-centric social network is so good at figuring out interests you never expressly tell it.'
What is TikTok’s secret? According to the WSJ, it is “the amount of time you linger over a piece of content.”
That was disappointing. Let me give you three reasons why.
I would expect from the WSJ a higher level of journalism and not sensationalism. Every company in this space - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. - does exactly the same thing. Their business models depend on your eyeballs being glued to the screen for as long as it takes. All these companies are trying to identify content which you might like and they capture every single interaction with their app. TikTok, in this context, is not better or worse than the others.
Perhaps TikTok engineers are better at what they do. As in, they are better at analyzing the uploaded content. They are better at labeling the content. They are better at analyzing your actions. They are better at predicting what you would like to see next. To say the WSJ was “inside TikTok’s highly secretive algorithm” is nonsense. Their approach was comparable to spending several hours watching YouTube videos or scrolling a Twitter feed endlessly. But that’s not the same as actually going “inside” an algorithm. I am sure that the predictive algorithms TikTok is using are highly guarded intellectual property, the same as with any other company.
The WSJ portrays personalization as something bad. They used an example of videos of people talking about depression or problems in their relationships, or generally sad stuff. During their 'investigation' they kept clicking on this type of content. My question is - What did you expect would happen? After clicking on a video of a guy talking about breaking up with his girlfriend, TikTok would quickly change it to a video with a clown?
So here is the dilemma. Do you want personalized content or not?
Do you want Google search to return results which match as closely as possible what you are looking for? Would you prefer that the search results be identical for everyone? Do you want to find professionals on LinkedIn with whom you might have similar interests? Alternatively, should you see random people?
If you know what you want to see on Tik Tok or other apps, great. But if you don't know what you want, don't ask the computer to decide for you. You won't like the result.
In the meantime, the marketplace has spoken. Most people are more than willing to trade a bit of privacy for convenience. Does an algorithm your company built help provide a positive, personalized experience for every user and customer of your app or service? If so, you are probably providing great value - and that will be rewarded.
And that's the recurrent pattern.