TikTok withheld the 2021 algorithm change that breaks up filter bubbles from about 10% of its US users, roughly 15 million people who stayed on the older version as a control group so the company could measure what the safeguard cost in daily active users, according to Olivia Carville at Bloomberg Businessweek. A March 2023 internal review of one 16-year-old's account, still under court seal, states that the protections did not apply to him by design, and describes the decision as a tradeoff between user safety and measuring the hit to core metrics. The report recommended shrinking the group below 1%, which its own update noted would still leave at least 1.8 million users excluded. TikTok said the test was routine and that it has since changed how it runs them.
