[sgpl]

I think the article's trying to convey that instagram has a more curated look and so by algo-design/human-design doesn't reward videos/reels that are shot on poor resolution phones and those that don't directly follow their guidelines for being promoted - these can be barriers for folks from marginalized communities and folks that have poor access to resources.

Tiktok on the other hand promoted your video to other users on the platform regardless of these 'requirements' and as a result those from poor/marginalized communities had the opportunity go viral and gain followers as well - without investment in the polish necessary to gain the same visibility on instagram. This polish could be in the form of better phones(cameras), better clothing or better backgrounds/scenes.

[bobthepanda]

Eh, TikTok got a lot of heat for telling its moderators to downrank fat people, disabled people, and queer people, so this is not by any means one being better than the other. https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/2/20991843/tiktok-bytedance...

[Jensson]

They weren't downranked, just ensured they didn't spread too much. I wouldn't be surprised if that is how all those marginalized communities started to love TikTok, since it created all these pockets of positivity instead of spreading the same videos to everywhere and everyone where they start to face more scrutiny and downvotes. Downranked would mean that it would have a hard time everywhere even locally within their communities, but that isn't what happened.

I think they used that concept as a basis for their algorithms later, and just changing the recommendation algorithms changes the feel of the entire platform.

[im3w1l]

There are a lot more poor straight people than there are rich gay people. So tiktok may have been better for most people.