The TikTok brand is displayed at a TikTok workplace on Jan. 23, 2026 in Culver Metropolis, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Pictures
TikTok’s U.S. app, now beneath majority American possession, stated a latest wave of glitches and content material disruption was attributable to an influence outage at considered one of its information facilities, pushing again towards claims that the platform was censoring political speech.
Customers have reported points with their accounts because the video-sharing app started working beneath a newly-formed U.S.-led three way partnership, following months of political strain over its Chinese language possession.
In opposition to the backdrop of a tense political surroundings within the U.S., a rising variety of viral complaints about TikTok have accused the platform of censoring sure political positions and even the phrase “Epstein” inside direct messaging.
CNBC confirmed that messages containing the phrase “Epstein” triggered an error message, however was unable to independently confirm broader claims of political censorship.
Requested concerning the points, a spokesperson for the TikTok three way partnership advised CNBC that the platform doesn’t prohibit sharing the title ‘Epstein’ in messages and that it’s investigating why some customers are experiencing the issue, amongst others.
The sensitivity surrounding the messaging subject pertains to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted intercourse offender. The Division of Justice has, since December, been releasing caches of paperwork tied to its investigations of Epstein, however has but to launch everything of the so-called “Epstein information.”
California scrutiny
The latest complaints about TikTok have been amplified by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose press workplace stated in a Tuesday publish on X that “our workplace has acquired reviews — and independently confirmed situations — of suppressed content material crucial of President Trump.”
“[Gavin] Newsom is launching a assessment of this conduct and is looking on the California Division of Justice to find out whether or not it violates California legislation,” it added.
Newsom’s workplace did not present proof to assist the claims, although many customers have posted movies allegedly exhibiting the problem. In a viral X publish, freelance journalist David Leavitt shared a screenshot of movies on his profile that had been flagged as “Ineligible for Suggestion,” and claimed TikTok had begun censoring anti-Trump and anti-ICE content material.
ICE refers back to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement company, which is at the moment engaged in a politically charged operation in the town of Minneapolis. The deadly shootings of two U.S. residents throughout federal enforcement actions by ICE have sparked outrage and political debate.
Simply hours earlier than Newsom issued his menace, the brand new TikTok three way partnership posted an replace on its X account saying the corporate was “persevering with to resolve” its main infrastructure subject.
“Whereas the community has been recovered, the outage prompted a cascading programs failure that we have been working to resolve with our information heart associate,” it stated, including that customers could discover a number of bugs, slower load instances, and timed-out requests when posting new content material.
The corporate additionally stated creators may quickly see “0” views or likes on movies attributable to server timeouts.
When requested straight about latest accusations of censorship, together with claims associated to content material about ICE, a TikTok USDS Joint Enterprise spokesperson stated that movies of the incident in Minnesota have been accessible on the platform and had been since Saturday.
Individually, customers reported this week that direct messages containing the title “Epstein” did not ship via TikTok’s direct messaging function. CNBC was in a position to recreate this error message when sending a message containing the title “Epstein.”
That message learn: “This message could also be in violation of our Group Pointers, and has not been despatched to guard our group.” Customers got the choice to report potential errors.
Possession overhaul
TikTok had confronted a possible shutdown within the U.S. final 12 months after the Supreme Court docket upheld a legislation requiring it to exit the market until its China-based guardian firm, ByteDance, divested the enterprise, amongst different nationwide security-related necessities.
Trump later issued a sequence of government orders permitting the platform to stay on-line whereas negotiations over a divestment continued.
Final Thursday, TikTok introduced it had shaped a three way partnership to maintain the app working within the U.S. beneath new management. Beneath the deal, ByteDance retains a 19.9% possession stake, whereas U.S. and world buyers maintain 80.1%. Key buyers embrace Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, every with a 15% stake.
Oracle’s co-founder Larry Ellison, a distinguished Trump supporter, was beforehand floated by the U.S. President as a potential TikTok purchaser way back to January final 12 months.
The Trump administration and a Trump-backed crypto agency have beforehand been concerned in offers with MGX, an Emirati state-owned funding agency centered on synthetic intelligence applied sciences.
— CNBC’s Matthew Chin contributed to this report
