TikTok US pushes back on claims it is censoring content

TikTok has denied claims that its new US operations are heavily-controlling what users post after thousands reported glitches with the video streaming platform.

In a response to the BBC, a spokesperson for TikTok US reiterated an earlier statement pointing to technical issues being the reason for problems since it became a separate American entity last week.

“We’ve made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner,” the spokesperson said. “However, the US user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content.”

They also pushed back on users’ claims they were not able to use the name “Epstein” on TikTok.

It refers to Jeffrey Epstein, the dead convicted sex offender and financier. The Trump administration has continued to face fierce scrutiny for its handling of the Epstein case.

TikTok said there are no rules against sharing the name “Epstein” in direct messages.

Last Thursday, a deal was concluded to split off the US division of the app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Just days after it changed hands, thousands of American users began reporting problems including seeing “zero views” on new posts.

While the TikTok said problems identified with the platform are being addressed, California Governor Gavin Newsom has nevertheless announced an investigation into claims TikTok has censored content which is critical of the Trump administration.

Many also reported being unable to see political posts, such as content criticising the shooting by federal agents of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.

Newsom’s office said it has received confirmed reports of TikTok suppressing content critical of US President Donald Trump.

“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports – and independently confirmed instances – of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” the California governor’s office wrote on X on Monday.

His post linked to another X user’s post containing a screenshot from TikTok, that appeared to show the video-sharing app flagging up a message they tried to send saying “Epstein”.

It said Newsom would be “launching a review of this content” and probe whether the company had violated the state’s laws.

The same flag seemingly appeared for other US TikTok users when they tried to message others with the Epstein surname, according to social media posts seen by BBC News.

Many users are speculating that this, combined with some political content not displaying in the app’s For You feed or in search, may be censorship.

The new US entity is being managed by a consortium of investors.

These include Oracle, a cloud computing giant and sole data center partner for TikTok US, which is chaired by Larry Ellison, a Republican mega-donor and longtime Trump ally.

US firm Silver Lake and Emirati investor MGX also owns stakes. Bytedance, maintains a 19.9% holding in the US business.

In addition, Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computer Corp, is a Trump donor and an investor in TikTok US.

Some celebrities have spoken out over concerns about TikTok.

Hacks actress Meg Stalter told Instagram followers on Sunday she had deleted her TikTok account because the app was “under new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored”.

Similar views have been echoed across social media, with many US users questioning in posts whether the app is “cooked”.

Users of the video-sharing app in the US have been posting on social media about problems throughout the outage, which began on Sunday.

Platform outage monitor Downdetector told the BBC it had received 663,061 reports of issues from US users of TikTok between Saturday and Monday.

“Okay so is anyone else’s TikTok being extremely slow, keeps showing you old videos, doesn’t show you what you what you actually search, and doesn’t load certain stuff….,” one X user asked on Sunday.

Some users said they could not view creator monetisation tools on the app, with others noticing new videos they had uploaded to the platform did not have the same visibility as usual or were “stuck at zero views”.

TikTok’s US owner said on Monday users may notice “multiple bugs, slower load times or timed-out requests” as it it worked to resolve issues triggered by a power outage at one of its data centre partner Oracle’s sites.

“While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve together with our data centre partner.” it said.

The company also sought to reassure users their data and content engagement “were safe”.

As with the many other issues reportedly affecting the TikTok app and its sister app CapCut since Sunday, they appeared to be largely contained to the US.

As part of Trump’s deal allowing TikTok to continue operating in the US, Oracle will inspect and retrain a separate version of its algorithm for American users.