TikTok is suppressing ‘content critical of President Trump’ in the US, California governor claims – as investigation looks into whether it 'violates' state law

• TikTok appears to be censoring all anti-Trump and anti-ICE content, California Governor Gavin Newsom claims
• Newsom's press office received reports of TikTok suppressing content critical of Trump, and is launching an official review
• More users are reporting similar occurrences, which have risen since the recent US TikTok deal was finalized just days ago

TikTok has found itself in the middle of yet another controversy, and this time the platform is coming under fire for allegedly censoring content that’s critical of President Donald Trump, California Governor Gavin Newsom claims.

Newsom has been outspoken over TikTok’s possible violations after his office received “reports and independently confirmed instances” revealing TikTok has potentially been suppressing or reviewing anti-Trump and anti-ICE content, which comes just days after the platform finalized a new $14 billion deal that was backed by Trump.

The governor shared a post to X, saying “it’s time to investigate”, followed by a post from the Governor Newsom Press Office announcing he’s officially “launching a review of this conduct” and will be “calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law". What evidence does Newsom's office have that TikTok is allegedly censoring this anti-Trump content?

On Governor Newsom’s X account (see above), he reposted an image shared by the user @intelligentpawg showing a private TikTok DM message featuring the word ‘Epstein’ – which failed to send due to what TikTok says was a violation of community guidelines, the Newsom Press Office claims. Since this was shared online, more users have come forward reporting similar occurrences, like the Reddit user below.

We’re being censored from r/TikTok

Although the White House and TikTok have yet to issue a statement about the possible rise of censorship, the outlet Politico spotted an X post from the TikTok USDS Joint Venture account drawing attention to recent in-app bugs. According to the statement, TikTok has been experiencing “major infrastructure issues” as a result of a data center power outage.

Though this has been fixed, TikTok says that users are still likely to run into temporary issues such as slower loading times, and even seeing 0 likes and views on certain videos – but many aren’t convinced by this.

“I’m done with the app”

TikTok can blame bugs and outages all it wants, and although Newsom's claims have yet to be proven correct, TikTok is failing to convince frustrated users otherwise. And given the people behind the latest deal that’s extended TikTok’s US lifespan once again, some are finding it hard to pin their censorship suspicions on bugs.

Comment from r/TikTok

The biggest and most influential name behind the $14 billion deal is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who, aside from being a billionaire, is a long-time supporter of Trump. This alone raised a lot of eyebrows, and now the apparent rise of anti-Trump censorship is being pinned on TikTok’s new investors. It's worth remembering, though, that this isn’t the first time Ellison has contributed to a major social media investment.

In 2022, when Elon Musk bought what is now known as X, Ellison contributed a generous amount of funding to ensure Musk’s acquisition would go through. Since then, Ellison’s son has even dipped his toe into the media waters, acquiring Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including Paramount+, Comedy Central, and the CBS Network.

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