Newsom is investigating allegations of suppression of anti-Trump content on TikTok
Newsom announced he was investigating reports that TikTok was cracking down on anti-Trump content days after the platform avoided a nationwide ban by finalizing a Trump-backed US copyright deal.
“Following the sale of TikTok to a business group affiliated with Trump, our office received reports – and independently verified cases – of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” the governor’s press office said in a statement Monday evening on X.
The announcement comes after a number of online complaints that videos critical of Trump, such as those criticizing the actions of ICE in Minnesota or speaking out against the killing of Alex Pretti by federal agents, are getting zero views or much lower view counts than usual.
The new US company TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC has not publicly responded to the alleged audit. However, the company said in a statement on Monday that it was dealing with a power outage at a US data center that caused a “cascading systems failure.”
Among the issues the platform advised creators to look out for were missing views or likes on videos, slow load times and timed requests. Thousands of user issues were being reported throughout the day on Monday, according to tracker Downdetector.
Newsom’s press office said the governor was asking the California Department of Justice to review whether the request violated state law by processing anti-Trump content. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It’s time to investigate,” Newsom wrote on X while reposting a screenshot showing a TikTok user being blocked from sending the message “epstein.” The screenshot says, “This message may violate our Community Guidelines, and was not sent to protect our community.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson told the Washington Post that the White House “is not involved in, and has not made, requests related to the moderation of TikTok content.”
Internet host Preston Stewart, who makes informative videos on war and national security topics, said two videos he posted on Monday disappeared and another video could not be viewed despite having 1.3 million followers.
“I’ve seen people suggest that this is targeted but what I see is that it affects everyone,” Stewart wrote on X.
Still, frustration continued to spread online among creators, celebrities and elected officials who felt the suppression of opinion was deliberate.
State Representative Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said that TikTok is “now a state-controlled media outlet” in a Monday morning statement on X. He shared a screenshot showing that a video he posted about his legislative proposal to allow people to sue ICE agents received zero views compared to thousands of views on his regular content.
“TikTok is dead. It was killed by the state and the corrupt kleptocrats who suckled it,” he wrote on Monday evening in a post by X, again posting another screenshot, this time showing the very low number of views on the videos recently shared by CNN.
TikTok finalized a deal on Thursday to spin off its US operations into a new American joint venture with a majority of investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. The $14-billion deal puts Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and a longtime Trump supporter and donor, in a powerful position over the program’s operations in America.
