TikTok bets on ‘high-quality content’ as social media faces its ‘tobacco’ moment

LONDON: As social media faces its “Big Tobacco moment,” TikTok is doubling down on “high-quality content” to keep audiences engaged.

“High-quality content is usually content that audiences find clear, engaging and valuable,” Haya Barghout, head of creators at TikTok MENA, told Arab News.

“That can be reflected in different ways, including whether people watch, engage, share, comment, follow the creator or come back for more,” she added.

Social media in 2026 bears little resemblance to the platforms of the early 2000s. What began as a digital space for keeping in touch with friends and family has evolved into a core layer of the internet — one that sustains thousands of jobs and shapes culture in real time.

But as Meta goes on trial for $200 billion in damages over the fundamental design of its platform, other social media companies are watching closely for a possible moment of reckoning over their own addiction allegations.

Barghout said: “There is an important difference between earning attention and trying to manipulate attention.

“Earning attention means creating a video with a strong opening, a clear story, useful information, entertaining delivery or a satisfying payoff. That is what we encourage creators to focus on.”

In recent months, TikTok has embarked on what it described as a “smarter content growth” mission.

Drawing on internal data, TikTok found that creators posting high-quality content have a 72 percent lead in accumulated watch time per video view, while those who maintain that consistency experience gain over 40 times greater follower growth and are three times more efficient at attracting new followers per video.

“What distinguishes these accounts is not one single tactic. It is the combination of stronger creative habits,” Barghout said. “These creators tend to invest in clearer storytelling, better visuals, stronger hooks, more thoughtful editing, subtitles, voiceover where relevant, and content that feels intentional and recognizable.”

She stressed that while watch time is important because it can show that people are choosing to spend time with a video, “quality is broader than one metric.”

She added: “The message for creators is not to chase one signal. It is to focus on creating content that adds value to the community and one they genuinely want to spend time watching.”

As the primacy of community over virality and a growing consumer backlash against AI-generated content reshape social media, TikTok has moved to crack down on artificially inflated engagement, misleading viewers and manipulation of platform systems to gain followers.

“Our deceptive behaviors and fake engagement policy is designed to ensure TikTok remains a trustworthy space where engagement is authentic and reflects real audience interest,” Barghout said, adding that when “inauthentic activity” is detected, “we take action, which can include removing fake likes or followers, restricting accounts, or banning accounts that violate these rules.”

For creators, however, this push toward high-quality content appears to be nothing new.

“Timing, trends and collaborations can all give you a boost, but they’re not what build a loyal community,” Miled and Melissa Rahal, the Dubai-based Lebanese content creator couple known as The Rahal, told Arab News. “That’s been our approach from the very beginning.”

Famed for their cinematic lifestyle videos, relatable family moments and comedy, the Dubai-based couple have long focused on creating content that places “strong ideas, good storytelling, consistency, and an understanding of your audience” at the centre of their strategy.

They said their time was split 20 percent on analyzing performance and 80 percent on creating content.

The couple added: “We look at watch time, retention and audience feedback because they’re useful indicators, but we don’t let them dictate every creative decision. Data helps us understand what’s working, but creativity comes first.”

Over time, platform statistics have increasingly become a benchmark for assessing creators’ quality, particularly when negotiating sponsorship agreements with brands.

But as platforms become flooded with AI-generated content, users are favoring more authentic material.

According to Hootsuite’s 2026 social trends report, nearly a third of consumers say they are less likely to choose a brand that uses AI-generated ads, making human-led storytelling a critical differentiator even as AI tools become standard for research, analytics and content optimization.

“Brands naturally have objectives and key messages they want to communicate, but we always remind them that our audience follows us for our style of storytelling, not for advertisements,” the couple said.

“Since we write our own scripts, we stand our ground when it comes to the creative approach because we know what resonates with our audience,” they added, noting that while AI is a great tool when it is used to support creativity, more people choose content they connect with and that reflects real experiences.

In an effort to limit the circulation of AI content, TikTok last year gave users the power to reduce the amount of AI-made content on their feeds.

In July, it began rolling out new AI literacy resources and testing enhanced spam-detection systems across the Middle East and North Africa, adding it was investing in AI literacy through partnerships with trusted experts, including NAMLE, Henry Ajder, NoFiltr and Raspberry Pi.

“As AI-generated content continues to evolve, our focus is on helping our community better identify, understand and engage with AI-powered experiences,” Barghout said.

She explained that as more creators — across the region and beyond — use AI as an aid, “our priority is to support that creativity responsibly.”

To date, TikTok said it has removed more than 86 million fake accounts and labeled more than 3 billion AI-generated videos, up from 1.3 billion a year earlier.

But while the flood of AI-generated “slop” on social media represents a major challenge for platforms, another front in the battle is a broader cultural shift: users — including in Saudi Arabia — are becoming more selective about how they spend their time online, a trend experts associate with social media fatigue.

“For TikTok, that reinforces the importance of making the time people choose to spend on the platform feel valuable, entertaining and in their control,” Barghout said, explaining that the platform’s ongoing emphasis on quality content is a direct response to that shift.

“That is why quality matters so much. When audiences become more selective, creators and brands need to earn attention through content that feels relevant, creative and authentic.

“The goal is not simply to add more content or more interruption. It is to create a better experience, whether that comes from creators, communities or brands.”

Asked how that would clash with the current social media revenue model, Barghout said TikTok viewed “monetization and user experience as separate priorities.”

She added: “The strongest advertising on TikTok is creative that feels native to the platform, respects the community experience and adds value to the feed.

“I would not frame this as quality versus quantity. Consistency is important for creators because it helps them stay connected to their communities and continue learning what resonates. The point is that consistency becomes stronger when it is paired with quality.”

For TikTok, Barghout explained, the long-term value of attention comes from people wanting to return because they find content that is entertaining, useful, authentic and relevant to them.

“That is better for the community and the creators,” she said. “Different types of content can go viral on TikTok and that's the beauty of the platform, but consistency, engaging content and good storytelling is what builds trust, community and engagement.

“So the focus is not on posting less, and it is not on flooding the feed. Attention is most valuable when it is earned. That is what creates stronger communities, better creator growth and more meaningful opportunities for brands.”