Past discussion <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35573624">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35573624</a>
I very much doubt this is the TikTok algorithm.<p>1. It doesn't even claim to be that.<p>2. It's over a year old - so even if it was, this is no longer it.<p>3. There's zero incentive for them to release it, but every incentive to release a fake one.<p>4. TikTok is too much of a national asset, I doubt the Chinese government would not use it to their advantage (and transparency would be counter to that).<p>Edit: there's also <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42471278">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42471278</a>
Like Facebook before, everyone talks about the TikTok algorithm being some super secret and valuable mystery. In reality, both Facebook and TikTok succeeded because they were at the right place at the right time and didn't screw things up. The TikTok recommendation system is smart and very well implemented, but nothing novel that couldn't be implemented by a dozen other teams.
for those interested, Chinese laws forbid the export of recommendation systems, unless ByteDance is challenging the Chinese laws here, which is highly unlikely, this simple can not be the recommendation system used in their production.<p>will be far more interesting to know say what is the difference, what got changed/removed to make them feel comfortable that such an open source variant won't get them into troubles with some 3-letters-acronym agencies back home.