What I love about tiktok is how they've managed to ban all political content. It's a social network which is fun precisely because it's not monopolised by rotten people with loads of free time.
People try to get their political content trending on TikTok, but it seems like it usually just gets parodied and they basically get laughed off the platform.
I have seen high effort political content hit the FYP page though and get millions of views. Like there is a guy who composes his own songs with a political theme and sings and dances them. That hits FYP all the time, because it is high effort and engaging, and people enjoy the tune and watch it loop a few times.
High effort political content does succeed and does hit FYP, but it is rare to see because most people haven't figured out how to do it right for the TikTok audience. The kind of tired old outrage memes that make it on Twitter won't succeed on TikTok because they don't generate the same algorithmic signals.
Can you please source this claim? Plenty of people see highly political content on their FYP, but it is a niche within TikTok because it's not really why people use it.
This is... not my experience with TikTok at all. I think what you've just described is your own little filter bubble that Tiktok presents.
My Tiktok is very gay. Not that that is political, but I get a lot of trans rights content, queer issues/advocacy, BLM content, pro-choice content, "landlords are evil" content etc etc and usually its funny and witty and I love it.
Here's a few with > 100k likes from a minute of searching "Immigration": https://www.tiktok.com/@janetwthehazeleyes/video/69415659895... https://www.tiktok.com/@attorneyericprice/video/691993902413...
"Gun control" https://www.tiktok.com/@feministmama/video/69619490520616174...
I keep seeing "facts" about TikTok posted on HN threads about it that don't hold up to basic research. It's so bizarre.