Sorry, I got the name wrong. It is the "explore|posts" feed specifically that I was talking about, and the attached picture shows what mine says. I could be being lied to, but...
"Trending now," I thought, was based on the number of posts with a particular hashtag. I think you might be right about boosts being included in those counts.
(Sorry about all the edits!!)
@doctorambient @ducky @Mrfunkedude I spend most of my Mastodon time under Explore - Posts which *does* seem to take favorites into account