Recommendation objectives for a specific platform are typically defined through careful analysis of user needs, business requirements, and strategic goals, emerging from stakeholder discussions, user research, and business strategy sessions. Multiple stakeholders with potentially conflicting interests - including users, content creators, editors, and the business - must be identified and balanced. Effective optimization seeks to align these competing interests rather than serve any single party exclusively. This means objective-setting is fundamentally a cross-functional process, not a purely technical one, and should involve product, strategy, and busienss teams.