Are you implying that TikTok had >50% of likes coming from bots and didn't know it?
You don't need to fake the likes yourself to get the effect you want.
The same thing was happening on Instagram and Facebook - just at a much smaller ratio - mostly because they stopped the problem earlier and the bot technologies got better and easier while TikTok was trying to grow and doing nothing to stop it - not because Instagram and Facebook were less fake.
I’m saying you gave a bunch of “citations” that don’t support your claim. And your original claim is TikTok the first party boosted content with tons of fake upvotes to appear more viral, which you seem to have modified to a much weaker “they knowingly allowed third party bots to fester in order to appear more viral” in your reply.
Now, does either of the original strong claim or the subsequent weak claim match reality? It’s anyone’s guess, I’m leaning on likely for the latter and maybe for the former. But that’s not the point. Giving fake citations to make one’s argument appear stronger is what irks me, and again ironically, it’s almost a parallel of appearing more viral with fake likes.
Edited to add: your comment here is a perfect example of two problems on HN: using citations to give the impression of being well-supported when the citations say something else (occasionally the exact opposite); and lately, using AI slop as evidence.
It’s super interesting some platforms in China have discarded view counts and likes in favor of engagement scores, more ways to show a big exciting number to the creators
You don't need to fake the likes yourself to get the effect you want.
The same thing was happening on Instagram and Facebook - just at a much smaller ratio - mostly because they stopped the problem earlier and the bot technologies got better and easier while TikTok was trying to grow and doing nothing to stop it - not because Instagram and Facebook were less fake.