Anyone can literally stick a totally false political statement or whatever they want over "OhNo" by Creeper and it's highly likely to trend. It's also why the song OhNo, and many variations of it played so often on the platform. There is always a limited and interchangeable pool of songs designated by the platforms to trend, in order to make the ruse less obvious. The designated sounds can also be muted so that uploaded video sound can only be heard as well, but plays of the original sound still get the royalties.
On the back-end of that, Creeper makes royalties from each stream, and gives a cut to sponsors and TikTok... Literally millions of dollars each day are generated by any associated video plays... The entire music industry is looted by this too.
This is the BS involved with the algorithm on TikTok, it's not mostly AI driven recommendations, it's driven by a pre-designated sounds that make a lot of money because of royalty plays. TikTok gains popularity and money each time these trending sounds play picks the songs that trend. Other musicians, thinking they have a chance (without being endorsed by the platform) struggle fruitlessly to get their sounds to trend, but undercover they can't because they are not aligned with the right brand partnerships that lobby TikTok and pay heavily for advertising.
It's primarily not the algorithm in charge based on my observations as a developer, and the idea of content "choice" on TikTok is mostly a fallacy, though taxonomy does play a minor role in the mix, user accounts also manipulate their taxonomy to insert their content regularly into your feed.
