California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that he was launching a review of TikTok after complaints began over the weekend, with some users alleging censorship as they tried to post videos related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Saturday\u2019s fatal shooting in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TikTok, which recently split off its U.S. operations in a deal backed by the Trump administration, has attributed the issues to a power outage at a data center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It\u2019s time to investigate,” Newsom wrote on Threads. “I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jamie Favazza, head of communications for TikTok’s new U.S. business, told NBC News that the worries of censorship were unfounded and that the problems were due to the data center outage. New posts may still have lingering issues, she said, while the company works with the data center to fully restore service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company said Monday evening on X that it was \u201ccontinuing to resolve a major infrastructure issue\u201d that had caused some videos to incorrectly and temporarily be labeled as having zero views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statements came after a wave of online outrage over the killing of Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse, in Minneapolis on Saturday morning. As users tried to post videos about the killing, many found that they were unable to publish, that they didn\u2019t see the number of views they expected on their videos or that their videos had been put in a review process. The interruptions became the first impression many TikTok users got of the platform\u2019s new U.S.-based leadership, following a deal touted by President Donald Trump and announced Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That day, TikTok\u2019s previous owner, the Chinese company ByteDance, finalized an agreement to sell its U.S. operations to a group of investors that includes Oracle, whose chief technology officer, co-founder Larry Ellison, is a top Trump ally. The investors announced their collaboration the same day, along with changes that will be made to TikTok\u2019s algorithm and Trust & Safety practices. No timeline was given for those changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many TikTok users have said the sale could spell the beginning of the end of the platform\u2019s status as a place to share news and analysis that is often progressive and critical of right-wing and conservative politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The corporate changes, along with the tech issues over the weekend, raised suspicions among many users that political censorship was occurring, especially censorship of criticism of the Trump administration and ICE\u2019s activities in Minneapolis. Across social media platforms like Threads, Instagram, X and Bluesky, users said that their political content on TikTok was getting unusually low visibility or that their accounts had been restricted or banned from the platform when they tried to comment on ICE enforcement in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Journalist David Leavitt wrote on X that \u201cTikTok has begun censoring anti-Trump and anti-Ice content\u201d and shared a screenshot of videos on his profile that had been flagged as \u201cIneligible for Recommendation.\u201d The post accumulated over 1 million views, with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., replying in a quote post, \u201cI know it\u2019s hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The speculation around the issues traveled widely over the weekend, from highly followed influencers to celebrities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prominent celebrities such as actor Megan Stalter and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish also put up posts on Instagram with claims that TikTok was censoring content related to ICE. Eilish wrote in an Instagram story Monday that \u201ctiktok is silencing people btw…\u201d and shared a TikTok video of her brother, Finneas O\u2019Connell, speaking about Pretti that got a little over 100 likes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stalter wrote in her post Sunday: \u201cTT is under new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored. I\u2019m unable to upload anything about \ufffd\ufffd even after I tried to trick the page by making it look like a comedy video.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democratic political analyst Emily Amick said on Instagram that she had been \u201cposting about ICE\u201d and that her account was later suspended, adding, \u201cLOTS of political creators have been getting NO VIEWS on content about ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been posting just a couple videos about ICE stuff recently, and I tried to post \u2014 it was actually a video about the ice storm, using the word \u2018ice,\u2019 obviously \u2014 and it wouldn\u2019t allow me to post it,\u201d Amick said in an interview. \u201cAnd then I got that notice that I was suspended.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very weird suspension notice,\u201d she added. \u201cI don\u2019t know what the nature of the suspension was. I appealed it and said, \u2018I make all my own content,\u2019 and now I\u2019m able to post again, but I\u2019m getting very low views. I was at zero for a number of hours, and now it\u2019s at 23 views for a post.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NBC News employees also experienced issues with the app. Attempts to upload videos over the weekend were met with error messages. Eventually, uploaded videos were put under review or were posted but didn\u2019t get views or comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A top thread on the popular TikTok subreddit titled \u201cShould we delete TikTok en masse?\u201d warned of the new ownership\u2019s affiliations. Dozens of users suggested moving to a similar platform, like YouTube Shorts or another alternative short video app, UpScrolled. UpScrolled was the ninth-most-downloaded social networking app on Apple\u2019s App Store on Monday evening, having moved up five spots in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some users also said TikTok\u2019s updated privacy policy, released the day the deal was finalized, added to their hesitancy to embrace the platform under the new ownership. Users discovered that the updated policy disclosed that TikTok could access users\u2019 \u201csensitive personal information,\u201d including \u201ccitizenship or immigration status,\u201d as well as \u201cprecise location data.\u201d But those disclosures are actually not new, according to TechCrunch, and they appear to be an attempt to comply with California law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
David Greene, senior counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to online civil liberties, said that while it isn\u2019t fully clear to him what happened over the weekend, the change in ownership creates the possibility of political influence over the app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe and many other critics of the TikTok ban urged Members of Congress on both sides to oppose the TikTok ban on many grounds. But among them was the extraordinary ability it granted the president \u2014 and whoever would happen to be president \u2014 to control ownership (and thus the editorial policy) of TikTok,\u201d Greene said in an email. \u201cWhen Trump said he \u2018would save TikTok,\u2019 we explained that that meant he would arrange to have it sold to someone beholden to him, or otherwise willing to do his bidding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the fears of conservative ownership, TikTok\u2019s sale originated with a bipartisan Biden-era effort \u2014 driven by a fear that TikTok was alleged to have given China unprecedented influence over Americans \u2014 to ban TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance wouldn\u2019t sell the company to give it majority-American ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n