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Spent a week in Austin watching a news story blow up on TikTok, the algorithm was obvious
I was in Austin last month for a job. This local story about a food truck owner getting shut down started trending on TikTok. I watched it happen in real time. Day one it was just local people posting. Day three the same exact video format was being pushed by big accounts with 100k+ followers. Same script, same music, same outrage. The algorithm clearly picked a winner and flooded the zone. The whole thing felt manufactured. Has anyone else noticed how fast the same talking points spread when a story fits a certain format?
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brooke_taylor4410d ago
Used to think those viral stories were just regular people getting lucky with the algorithm, but this totally changed my mind about that. Watching that same video format copy and paste across huge accounts in less than 48 hours was wild, it was like the platform picked the story before people even knew what happened. You can see the pattern now with almost any local drama that fits a certain angry news mold, it gets the same scripted treatment. Makes you wonder how many big trending topics we saw before were really just manufactured by the algorithm pushing a winning template.
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harpercampbell10d ago
Hmm, I actually see it the other way - sometimes a story just hits a nerve and the algorithm amplifies what people already cared about.
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Wait, wasn't that story actually from a city council meeting video though?
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