TikTok’s trying to improve the academic worth of the platform, with the addition of a new STEM feed, a brand new matter stream within the app that may deal with content material associated to science, expertise, engineering, and math.
As defined by TikTok:
“Training-based communities already thrive throughout TikTok. Actually, STEM-related hashtags have obtained over 110 billion views up to now, connecting a dynamic neighborhood of individuals over shared pursuits. We’ve designed the STEM feed to function a vacation spot for these trying to dive into these enriching subjects additional. Whether or not encouraging aspiring scientists to work out experiments in feedback sections or serving to a brand new programmer be taught to code, the STEM feed supplies an area for co-learning, inspiration, and enrichment.”
The mission, created in partnership with Widespread Sense Networks and Poynter, will present a spread of academic insights primarily based on scientific exploration, with these third-party organizations serving to to substantiate content material accuracy, and hold the feed stocked with informative, useful content material.
It’s an attention-grabbing strategy by TikTok, which could possibly be one other manner for the platform to focus on its potential worth to US regulators, who’re still considering its future in the region.
It additionally, in some methods, mirrors how the Chinese language model of TikTok, referred to as ‘Douyin’, operates, in selling extra optimistic, academic content material, versus the dancing and prank movies that always fill TikTok person feeds.
On Douyin, positive, inspirational topics, like ‘Optimistic Vitality’ and ‘Data Sharing’, get essentially the most promotion and attain within the app.
That’s a part of the Chinese language Authorities’s push to handle what younger individuals see, with the concept being that by selling extra optimistic traits, that may encourage the youth to aspire to extra helpful and necessary parts, through Douyin traits.
Possibly, by way of the promotion of a devoted STEM feed, TikTok’s additionally trying to spotlight how this strategy can have a optimistic influence, so as to mitigate issues about harmful traits and dangerous utilization, which might cut back children’ consideration spans and incentivize unfavorable behaviors.
That’s to not say that TikTok’s trying to implement controls just like the CCP, however possibly, there’s a manner for TikTok to showcase extra optimistic parts, as a way to attraction to regulatory our bodies, and cut back issues across the app.
Possibly that gained’t work, however the idea does have some advantage, particularly when you think about the period of time that children now spend scrolling through their TikTok feed every day.
If that could possibly be extra geared in direction of optimistic, academic parts, possibly that may be factor. To not the extent of the stringent controls carried out in China, however an extra nudge for academic content material won’t be unhealthy.
We additionally know that TikTok is already skewing traits by manually interfering with the algorithm, so it may change what individuals are seeing.
Possibly slightly extra weighting towards studying might assist.
TikTok says that it’ll be rolling out the brand new STEM matter feed to US customers later this month.
