>TikTok moderators were told to suppress videos from users who appeared too ugly, poor or disabled, as part of the company’s efforts to curate an aspirational air in the videos it promotes, according to new documents published by the Intercept.
Could you explain how this is related? This is evidence they've always curated for what they deem as "undesirable" things, related to engagement.
> who appeared too ugly, poor or disabled
From the engagement perspective, you'll find that movie stars, social media stars, CEOs, and even politicians (with some famous presidential results [1]) are, nearly without exception, attractive and fit. Why?
I would say removing political rage bait is a sign that they are not optimizing for engagement but enjoyment. TikTok is a feed of stuff that's interesting, funny, and wholesome, not the slop and doomscrolling that chasing engagement gets you. Just from looking at the thumbnail in the article you can tell it would never be shown on TikTok, regardless of political content.
The algorithm optimizes for engagement.
This is outside of that optimization because it is outright just removing this content, not even considering it for display.