National Democratic figures piled on TikTok as influencers and left-wing commentators accused it of censoring anti-Trump content in recent days.
On Sunday, the day after Alex Pretti was fatally shot during the Trump administration’s immigration offensive in Minnesota, TikTok users began reporting that videos mentioning the words “ICE,” “Epstein,” “Israel” and “Trump” from accounts with large followings were getting zero views hours after posting. They also reported that messages containing words such as “Epstein” would not reach their recipient. The social media giant blamed technical glitches, but by Monday, Democrats were threatening at least one investigation and renewing their calls for more regulation of social media platforms.
“It’s interesting to me that on the same weekend TikTok was taken over by a bunch of Trump-aligned billionaires, we saw some pretty massive censoring of anti-Trump content,” Sen. Chris Murphy told NOTUS. “I don’t know that those two things are connected, but I think it’s really important for us to be vigilant.”