He was stuck at home, learning remotely, and had more time than expected on his hands.
Then I was like, I gotta make more videos now.
Views on his videos continued to tick up throughout the fall, and several million more followers streamed in.
Since Jan. 18, I havent had a day that Ive gained followers, McClellan said.
Before late February, even my followers werent seeing my videos.
It’s free, every week, in your inbox.
McClellan hadnt taken time off, posted taboo content, or altered the style of his videos.
On his side of things, nothing had changed.
But similarly, if videos suddenly disappear from that feed, creators prospects can evaporate.
What is so incredibly precarious is often the [algorithmic] tweaks that are unannounced.
Theres always been this unpredictability, and creators have little to no recourse.
Meanwhile, creators say they still feel largely left on their own.
The TikTok algorithm is very opaque, McClellan said.
You have to post O.K.
content, but after that its really just random chance that your videos are going to blow up.
With shadow banning, nothing changes in what creators see, but theyre invisible to most everyone else.
Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube have alsobeen accused of shadow bans.
Im sure of it, Hickey said.
How do we prove it?
They are taking down individual content from creators, and we see creators constantly complaining about that.
Facebooks default is to let stuff stay on the platform.
TikTok seems to be the opposite.
TikTok bans violent extremism, hateful behavior, adult nudity, and more.
In itscommunity guidelines, it says it enforces its rules using a mix of technology and human moderation.
TikToks McQuaide declined to comment on questions about content moderation, Jan. 18, or shadow banning.
TikTok denied those claims.
They explained theglitch was a display issue, and the posts still generated billions of views.
Nevertheless, we understand that many assumed this bug to be an intentional act.
But Oyelowo hasnt experienced the same rapid success as McClellan.
It felt like crawling up on my bare hands to get 500 [followers], Oyelowo said.
To get to 500 was really really difficult.
I was posting and posting videos.
And then things just naturally started to pick up without me doing anything, Oyelowo said.
It is definitely addictive, Oyelowo said.
For content creators, their livelihoods depend upon their ability to get visibility, Duffy said.
With this entire system, it extracts labor.
And more specifically, it extracts labor to direct attention to the platform.
He posts about four times a week, and each video takes roughly three hours to create and upload.
He shoots and edits the videos at night once he comes home from his day job waiting tables.
It can be exhausting, he said.
So, a couple of months ago he decided to take a three-day break.
You definitely get tired sometimes and lose motivation, Barnes said.
Thats why I decided to take a break that one time.
I was like, This is too much for me.
When he started uploading videos again, he noticed they were getting fewer views than normal.
But it took weeks.
To this day, Barnes has no idea what happened.
They promote creators and act as middlemen in making deals with brands.
With such massive audiences, TikTok creators can be good at bringing in money.
This could be a lucrative industry for years and years to come.
A3 helps influencers in every area except growing their TikTok fanbase.
Ultimately, however, its up to the influencers to keep up engagement.
A lot of people can go viral, but can they back that up?
The folks that we work with create content for a living.
Its a lot of pressure to keep that going.
Tha Lights Global, a smaller talent agency that focuses on hip-hop artists, has represented influencers for years.
One of the agencys goals is get them to think beyond the social media platform.
TikTok might not be around forever, and you cannot rely on that.
For Oyelowo, the novelty has worn off.
You invest time in it because its this odd mystery puzzle, Oyelowo said.
But its a moving target.
This article by Dara Kerr wasoriginally published on The Markupand was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
