2026-01-27 16:06:03
California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced an investigation into TikTok amid claims that the social media app is censoring content that is critical of US President Donald Trump.
A deal was concluded last week to split off the US operation of the app and American users have since started reporting problems such as seeing “zero views” on new posts.
Many users also reported being unable to see political posts, including those criticising the shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday (24.01.26).
TikTok is yet to comment on accusations that the problems are linked to last week’s deal and has blamed the glitches on a “major infrastructure issue” relating to a data centre power outage.
However, Newsom’s office says it has received verified reports of TikTok suppressing content that criticises Trump.
The Democrat Governor’s office wrote on the social media platform X: “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.”
It said that Newsom would be “launching a review of this content” and investigating whether the company had violated state law.
The California Governor declared on Monday (26.01.26) that it was “time to investigate” TikTok over concerns about censorship.
Newsom’s post linked to another X user’s post featuring a TikTok screenshot, appearing to show the app flagging up a message they tried to send saying “Epstein”.
Users are speculating that this, along with other political content not being displayed in the app’s For You feed or in search results, could be censorship from TikTok’s new US parent company TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC – which some investors and directors believe has ties to Trump.
Celebrities have also shared their concerns about the app.
Hacks star Meg Stalter told her Instagram followers on Sunday (25.01.26) that she had deleted her TikTok account as the app is “under new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored”.
TikTok’s US owner said that users might notice “multiple bugs, slower load times or timed-out requests” as it works to resolve issues caused by a power outage at a site of its data partner Oracle.
It said: “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.”
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