So, what is this “heating” feature?
“Heating” is nothing more than an internal button (literally) that allows TikTok and ByteDance’s staff to pick specific videos to go viral. You read it right: there’s a way to manually boost videos’ reach using this “heating” button, and only internal people have access to it.
“The heating feature refers to boosting videos into the For You feed through operation intervention to achieve a certain number of video views”, explains one of the internal TikTok documents reviewed by Forbes, called the MINT Heating Playbook.
Still according to this document, “the total video views of heated videos account for a large portion of the daily total video views, around 1-2%, which can have a significant impact on overall core metrics”. This means that for every 100 videos watched per user, 1 or 2 were manually selected using the heating button. And the tricky part is you can’t tell which ones.
What’s a bit wild about all of this is just how invisible the process really is. Users go about their day thinking the For You Page is some digital meritocracy working around the clock, but those manually chosen videos blend in so smoothly that you’d almost never know. I don’t know about you, but something about that hidden hand makes it feel less like a fair playing field and more like a rigged game in certain moments. Then again, maybe there’s never been a true level playing field anywhere online—this just makes it more obvious.
This secrecy can also muddy the waters for creators hoping to “crack the code” and grow organically. So you put in hours of work, chase TikTok trends, optimize your posts, and still, sometimes, it really comes down to whether someone behind the curtain taps a button for you. For brands that bank on analytics, this level of unpredictability might be a nightmare—or a weird kind of hope. It depends on your luck, or, apparently, who you know inside the company. That last part stings a bit for independent voices.
And what’s the main concern behind the “heating” button?
With this information coming to light – and with TikTok itself confirming its veracity, it’s no wonder people (including brands, creators, and influencers) have started to question TikTok’s impartiality, and the whole “personalized feed built by algorithm” speech has lost its strength.
And according to the Forbes investigation, unfortunately, these suspicions are not unfounded. Three other sources confirm to Forbes that some employees used the heating feature improperly, for personal interest. For example, boosting their personal accounts or accounts of people they know personally.
Also, these same sources claim that the company itself uses the heating button for its own benefits, boosting brands and influencers that it seeks for partnerships.
On the face of it all, TikTok and ByteDance tried to defend themselves, claiming that only a few people have access to this button, and its use is just to bring more diversity to the platform. But, for now, this whole story is still a case of “she said he said”. Perhaps we’ll be able to follow up with further investigations and clarifications in the near future.
Personally, I honestly can see some opportunities for this controversial button. After all, it is undeniable that diversity in the digital environment needs allies to have the visibility and the reach it deserves, but we’ll still need more information and transparency to know if this is in fact the only purpose behind this feature. Let’s see what comes out of this story.
