But at the massive scale of Meta or ByteDance, there is a difference between removing problematic content and actively promoting content. They’re two sides of the same coin, but the first is applied based on reactive guidelines (“we’ve previously decided this kind of content shouldn’t be here”) while the second is ultimately an in-the-moment opinion on whether more people should be seeing the content. The line is blurry, but these are not the same thing, and vibes-based content promotion is easier to manipulate.

Are there CCP agents working at ByteDance? Of course there are because it’s practically mandatory — just like American telecom companies have NSA wiretap rooms. Do those CCP agents get consulted on which foreign political candidate should get the viral boost? Perhaps not. But it appears they’ve built a system where this kind of thing is possible and leaves little paper trail because the curated boosting is so integral to the platform.

Purely chronological sorting of posts works the best and is fully automated. It's just really bad at keeping users eyeballs on ads.