[zenogantner]

While this is from ByteDance, who also are behind TikTok, this algorithm is likely not the one behind TikTok.

Instead, it is likely a component that powers ByteDance's commercial recommender system solution, which they market to e-commerce companies: https://www.byteplus.com/en/product/recommend

This was mentioned in past discussions of the paper on HN.

And even if aspects of this are used for TikTok: (a) it would be just one of many components of their recommendation system, and (b) the TikTok recommendation system has changed a lot during the 2+ years since this has been published.

So take what you see here with a grain of salt. After reading the paper and the code, you will NOT know how TikTok's recommendations work.