I'm not really surprised how this is considered a huge deal once again, but, in fact, this is what the users generally want. TikTok is a quite specific platform

I'm not really surprised how this is considered a huge deal once again, but, in fact, this is what the users generally want. TikTok is a quite specific platform, it's not there to share opinions and whatnot. It's to film and binge-watch hundreds of short stupid gimmicky music videos depicting what the general audience of the platform finds appealing (which turns out to be uncannily specific thing: I'm afraid by now it must be millions of hours of the same music, moves and facial expressions by 14-year old girls with awfully similar clothes and hairstyle). Videos TikTok moderators are suppressing here get to be watched and liked too, but not in some unassuming liberal manner SJWs are hoping to promote: you can find hundreds of so called "TikTok cringe compilations" on youtube. It's not what TikTok's "normal" audience wants to see in their feeds. So TikTok is doing them a service supressing this stuff. And it absolutely doesn't matter if they do it "algorithmically" or with manual labor. Essentially this is the same process, they differ only by cost and efficacy.