Is TikTok already censoring some topics, and restricting what U.S. users can see in the app?
A rising number of high-profile users have declared that they’re moving away from the platform, due to concerns that the new Trump-aligned TikTok US team will look to manipulate its algorithms to restrict discussion of certain topics.
Which, at least in theory, is possible, however the evidence of such thus far is speculative, while TikTok itself says that the issues that people are facing in the app are due to data center failures, not because of any manual manipulation or interference.
On the newly created “TikTok USDS Joint Venture” X account, the TikTok US team has provided an update on its ongoing data center issues, which were caused by an outage at one of its facilities.
As per TikTok US:
“We've made significant progress in recovering our U.S. infrastructure with our U.S. data center partner. However, the U.S. user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content. We're committed to bringing TikTok back to its full capacity as soon as possible.”
TikTok says that the current outages and system issues have caused some TikTok users to temporarily see “0” views or likes on their posts, while it’s also impacted the display of creator earnings. These are glitches, TikTok says, that will be resolved, and it’s working to recover all systems.
That would explain why some people are seeing zero views on their posts about ICE and Minneapolis, which some have suggested is overt censorship in the app.
Others have also raised concerns about limits on keyword searches, with searches for “Epstein” for example, producing no results, reportedly, for some users.
That may also be related to TikTok’s transition issues, though given the timing, you can see how, perceptually at least, it does appear like the new TikTok US team is looking to quell certain harmful talking points for the Trump team.
It’s too early to say whether this could be happening, and it would be a significant risk to TikTok’s U.S. business if it were to engage in such overt censorship.
But then again, last year, when discussing his proposed TikTok joint venture proposal, Trump did joke that he would make TikTok “100% MAGA” if he could, and with the timing of these issues, it is going to raise more questions as to how the TikTok US team will approach TikTok management.
But it’s too early to be calling this out as yet. There’s nothing definitive, the evidence is largely anecdotal, we’ll have to wait until there have been some more large-scale tests of the new TikTok US system before jumping to any conclusions.
But it’s not great timing for the new American version of the app, and it could trigger an early exodus of users.
