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Is this image a pair of shoes or a sponge? TikTok isn’t sure

TikTok’s shopping suggestions are, so far, very bad.

TikTok already allows influencers to link products directly in their videos, but these haphazard additions are part of a new — and expanding — effort to get people to buy more stuff on the platform. Effusive videos on a specific lamp or lip gloss are seen by millions, and TikTok users hop off the app and promptly buy up the product in droves. When I recently made a video about the design theory of an artist I enjoy, a commenter asked where I bought a piece of art hanging on the wall behind me — I didn’t even realize it was in the shot.

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