TikTok confirms that its own employees can decide what goes viral

  • TikTok has confirmed that some of its employees can boost selected videos onto the platform’s ‘For You’ section using TikTok’s “Heating” button.
  • This enables the video to override the algorithm that supposedly tailors individual’s personalised feeds.
  • A spokesperson for TikTok has said that another reason for heating videos is to “promote some videos to help diversify the content experience”.
  • These videos are not labelled to show that they are boosted by TikTok and they make up “around 1-2%” of “total daily video views”.
  • For more on this story, please visit the Verge website.

Children’s Commissioner says lessons must be learned after murder of five-year-old

  • The Children’s Commissioner has said that lessons must be learned and work has to be done to ensure Nadia Zofia Kalinowska did not “die in vain”.
  • The child died after being found injured in her family home in Newtownabbey.
  • Her stepfather was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder.
  • The abuse suffered by Nadia prior to her death has raised questions about child safeguarding.
  • To find out more, please visit the BBC’s website.

Almost a third of parents have not yet registered child for pre-school place

  • The deadline for applications for pre-school is on January 27th yet almost a third of parents haven’t registered their children for a place in pre-school in Northern Ireland.
  • The Education Authority (EA) have expressed concern that these applications have not yet been received for children eligible to start pre-school in September 2023.
  • Parents can apply now through EA Connect, which is the EA’s new customer portal.
  • For more, go to the Belfast Telegraph’s website.