TikTok U.S. spinoff fuels censorship claims amid glitches (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Over the weekend, some TikTok users here in the U.S. claimed that the social media platform was censoring content critical of the Trump administration.

[00:00:09] Speaker 2: If I could make it 100% MAGA, I would, but it's not going to work out that way, unfortunately. No, everyone's going to be treated fairly.

[00:00:16] Speaker 1: The criticism has come to a head after federal agents shot and killed an intensive care nurse, a man by the name of Alex Pretty, a U.S. citizen in Minnesota. The Department of Homeland Security says the agents fired in self-defense. Users reported that they could not upload or view videos related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE. TikTok, for its part, pointed to technical glitches. From the BBC, I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C., and today on The Global Story, how TikTok became a flashpoint in the Minneapolis shooting and a sign of a divided America. Mariana, welcome back to the show. It's always a joy to have you with us. Thank you so much for having me. So this is a complicated story we want to dissect. And I will say there are a few, if you'll, simultaneous stories going on here. There's a business story, a culture story, a tech story, a political story. But I would say to understand what happened here, I think it's important that we begin with the business story, which is also actually a bit of a political story. This all starts with the sale of the U.S. arm of TikTok. For years, U.S. officials, both Republicans and Democrats, have been talking about national security threats from China when it comes to TikTok. And so just the other week, TikTok finalized a deal to spin off a U.S. entity. What exactly is that entity and who controls it?

[00:01:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, so people might remember, if we go a little bit further back in time, that there was a period of time when Donald Trump was last president where he basically decided he wasn't so keen on TikTok operating in the way it does in the U.S. We're looking at TikTok.

[00:02:03] Speaker 4: We may be banning TikTok. We may be doing some other things or a couple of options. But a lot of things are happening, so we'll see what happens.

[00:02:11] Speaker 3: And those concerns were then echoed during Joe Biden's presidency as well. And essentially what they were saying was there are concerns that ByteDance, which are the parent company, they own TikTok, which is a Chinese company, could have access to sensitive data about U.S. users, and they weren't very keen on that. Now ByteDance, it's worth saying from the get-go, have always very strongly denied any allegations that they are misusing data or breaching privacy or anything like that. But nonetheless, this political storm sort of started to unfold around TikTok. Fast forward to when Donald Trump becomes president again, and there's this kind of imminent threat of a ban to TikTok entirely in the United States just after he's taken office. So this time last year.

[00:02:53] Speaker 1: If you wanted to block TikTok, why did you change your mind?

[00:02:56] Speaker 2: Because I got to use it. And remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids. If China's going to get information about young kids, I don't know.

[00:03:06] Speaker 3: Remember as well that TikTok was actually in the interim really valuable to Donald Trump during the election. He did really well at reaching a whole range of new younger audiences there.

[00:03:16] Speaker 1: He credits it with part of his victory. Exactly.

[00:03:19] Speaker 3: So you've got his attitude towards TikTok seems to have changed quite a lot, perhaps in part also due to the way that he was able to use it during the campaign. But also it's a hugely popular app with younger people, lots of younger Americans. There are people whose entire careers essentially are built around the app because they're influencers. They've managed to accrue a huge following. And so suddenly the stance changes and instead of it being TikTok can't operate in the U.S. anymore, it's actually TikTok can operate in the U.S. still, but only if that bit that operates in the U.S. is slightly separate from the main kind of way that TikTok works in other places.

[00:04:00] Speaker 5: Sir, we have an executive order on TikTok from the first days of your administration. You've charged a team from your administration led by Vice President Vance with ensuring that we can preserve TikTok. With this executive order, you will be effectively bringing into effect the agreement that will save TikTok and ensure that it can operate safely and securely.

[00:04:20] Speaker 1: So Mariana, can you talk us through that? What this new U.S. entity is and who controls it?

[00:04:26] Speaker 3: So essentially it's what we'd call a consortium of investors. So it is a group of different, very rich people who are investing in the company and effectively sort of taking on a lot of the responsibility when it comes to, for example, data storage and where, you know, where data is held and what can be used and what can't be used. And that is U.S. based. So there are different people and companies involved, one of which is Oracle, which is this computing giant and a data center partner for TikTok U.S. and that's chaired by someone called Larry Ellison. He's a Republican mega donor. People might have heard of him. He's also a longtime ally of Donald Trump. And then there are other companies, so take U.S. firm Silver Lake and the Emirati investor MGX. They've got some stakes as well. ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok overall, does still have a hold on the U.S. business, 19.9%. But essentially what it means is that there are more American companies and investors who have some control over TikTok in a way that just wasn't the case before.

[00:05:31] Speaker 1: And here in the U.S., I will say, Mariana, it was viewed as a sale to Trump allies in part because we saw the president just the other week take to his own social media account and say that TikTok will now be owned by a group of great American patriots and investors. It was seen here in Washington, at least, as a Trump backed deal.

[00:05:50] Speaker 3: Yeah. And that's the thing about this whole debate around TikTok and its ownership is that it's become very, very politicized. And quite interestingly, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump during their respective presidencies, the one before this one of Donald Trump's, actually had quite similar views about TikTok and concerns around misuse of data and everything else. It's right to point out that several of the companies, people who are involved in this new deal, this new consortium of investors, are people who do have links to Donald Trump who've been very supportive of him. They would say, and has been said by TikTok, the company, that this won't affect who they favor or don't favor, that this doesn't mean that there are political biases inbuilt into how the site works. But nonetheless, it kind of raises questions about how all of the social media companies actually have become this sort of tool, which if you are a president or a politician or anyone, is very useful to feel like the people in charge of them at least are on the same page as you or slightly more allied to you. What they then do with that is a whole other question.

[00:06:52] Speaker 1: So after the deal is finalized and the U.S. arm of TikTok is spun off, this officially happens on January 22nd, American users then log into this new version of TikTok. And can you walk us through what happens? I mean, if you're not a user of TikTok, I mean, look, I have it on one of my devices, but I will say it's a bit overwhelming, so I can't spend loads of time on TikTok. But walk us through, for those who may not know TikTok, what happens? Do you see anything that's different? Are you exposed to anything that's different?

[00:07:24] Speaker 3: So the main thing that users were immediately pointing out in the U.S. was that they weren't getting the views that they were getting before. And what that suggests is that your videos aren't being pushed, recommended by the algorithms on the For You page, which is the main bit of TikTok that you scroll on. And so there were quite a few users pointing this glitch out, saying, what is going on here? Why are we not reaching other people? Then there were specific things that users were concerned about. There were several who pointed out that when they tried to search for or post videos using the word Epstein, as in Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and financier who has kind of triggered quite a lot of scrutiny for Donald Trump's administration, although he very strongly denies any link to him. People started to notice that those kinds of videos weren't getting views or likes or that they couldn't post or they couldn't search for them. And what does TikTok say to that? So TikTok has come out about all of these glitches and essentially said this was a product of the way that they were moving, you know, changes around the infrastructure with how they hold data, their U.S. data center. So they said, we've made significant progress in recovering our U.S. infrastructure. However, the U.S. user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content. So basically saying this is a technical glitch, not something that is to do with the new ownership and political decisions.

[00:08:40] Speaker 1: So there's no censorship, no ban over, say, for example, that word Epstein you're saying that some users felt they could not post about.

[00:08:46] Speaker 3: TikTok has come out to say there are no rules against sharing the name Epstein in direct messages. Yeah, I mean, what's quite difficult when it comes to these sorts of issues around social media is probably like several things can be true at once. So it would make sense that there were technical issues when there's been this kind of change or move in terms of how data is being stored and the infrastructure and everything else. That kind of seems obvious that perhaps there might be some teething problems. But then also, you know, if a user posts something and they find that to be the case and people have posted screen grabs of this stuff, it's not like they're making it up. That doesn't necessarily mean that every user is experiencing that same thing. It could just be that that happened over a period of time, because we know that TikTok, for example, often has quite categorical moderation policies. So they won't allow you to post a particular term or a particular hashtag, which is different to some of the other sites. And what that can mean is that a kind of whole whole swathes of content are not allowed to exist. And you could find that, for example, some sexually explicit content was being shared with Epstein's name. And that might that might go part of the way to explain. And that was always the case. That was even when it was owned by this Chinese company. Exactly. But it's just that people don't notice it because they weren't necessarily looking for it. What is also worth highlighting is that the social media companies across the board, TikTok included, and I say this from my experience of investigating them and trying to hold them accountable, are not famous for being transparent about what's going on. I talk to a lot of the people who've worked at the companies and and, you know, they describe that opaqueness even when when they work within them. And so you can understand why users are saying, well, hang on a second, this doesn't fit. And there's just been this this change in ownership. And now I can't see this or I can't see that or I can't do that. But but again, as is always the case, often jumping to a kind of, oh, this must be part of a plot or a plan is not necessarily right. And sometimes it can be a kind of combination of different factors that are contributing. We just don't have the information, essentially. So we have to rely on what TikTok says, which is this wasn't done on purpose. And it kind of makes sense that, you know, glitches would unfold in this way.

[00:10:46] Speaker 1: So Mariana, it seems that the controversy over this new version of TikTok reaches a sort of fever pitch over the weekend when in Minneapolis, federal agents shot and killed a man. What was the controversy online amongst TikTok users over the weekend? Is it related to what was going on and unfolding in Minneapolis?

[00:11:09] Speaker 3: So there were several TikTok users, including on TikTok itself, but then also on X and on other sites pointing out that they didn't seem to be able to search for or to see the video that showed this clip, which has gone very viral of the ICU nurse who was shot and killed by Alex Preti. And people were saying, well, hang on a second, why am I not able to see this? Remember also that there was an incident that happened several weeks ago with a woman who was also shot in Minneapolis. So lots of people will have seen those clips. So if, for example, you saw the clip of that incident, but then now with the new ownership, you don't see the clip of this incident, you can see why people are saying, well, hold up a second. Why is that the case?

[00:11:51] Speaker 1: So Mariana, to this point about users feeling like there was some sort of censorship going on with Minneapolis, I want to ask you about something I saw online, which is that you saw some celebrities coming out and saying that they felt that TikTok under this new US ownership model was blocking videos. So much so that I saw one star even say that she was deleting her TikTok account.

[00:12:13] Speaker 3: Yeah. So the actress Meg Stalter from Hacks, she posted on Instagram saying that she deleted TikTok because, quote, the app was under new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored. And there were quite a few different social media users, some famous, some not, who were sharing a similar kind of sentiment, suggesting that this was political and that they couldn't post or view the kind of content they wanted to anymore. Then there's also politicians weighing in. So take Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. He then starts posting some of the screen grabs that are showing, you know, for example, it being trying to search for Jeffrey Epstein and not being able to find videos and saying, well, what's going on here, suggesting that this is politically motivated. So you've got a cohort of people, celebrities, politicians, and just the average social media user saying this is about politics. This is about the way that Donald Trump's administration are trying to influence or control the conversation around particular topics. And these topics are ones that are obviously critical of the administration. You've then got TikTok saying, no, hang on. This is just a glitch. It's technical. It's not political. And then you've actually got, which is probably the majority of users, people who are saying the app is slow. I keep getting old videos. I just can't enjoy using it, which is probably the kind of overriding experience that I've seen more about. As you might imagine, it's the political stuff that's been getting the kind of attention and views and likes.

[00:13:33] Speaker 1: I want to follow up on the politicization of this all. You mentioned the California governor, Gavin Newsom. And we did see on Monday evening, he got rather directly involved, saying that it's time to investigate what's going on, that he was going to launch a review into whether TikTok was violating state law by censoring Trump critical content. And just for some context here for listeners, I mean, Gavin Newsom has been a really bullish critic of President Trump. And many political experts would say that he has presidential ambitions of his own. But nonetheless, I mean, I think it's still worth talking about what he is claiming. So what was he explicitly claiming and how did he enter the picture here?

[00:14:16] Speaker 3: So Gavin Newsom is someone who has really started to build an online presence by kind of trolling, really, Donald Trump and posting on social media in quite a similar way to how Donald Trump does, often stuff that we'd consider kind of rage-baity, like it triggers a reaction or it's making fun of something. So it perhaps wasn't much of a surprise at all that he's someone who weighed in quite quickly on this debate about whether certain political ideas were being suppressed in some way. So Gavin Newsom wrote on X, his office said, 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. And Newsom then said, it said that Gavin Newsom would be launching a review of this content and to probe whether the company had violated the state's laws. Now what I understand from all of that is that they've got confirmed reports of actual genuine screen grabs and examples of where people have tried to post particular types of content and they feel that that's critical of the administration and it's not being posted for some reason. That can be true, but that doesn't necessarily explain why that's the case. And this review that he's talking about, we haven't really got much more information about it, but I presume involves him speaking to the company itself and also inquiring with the various users.

[00:15:31] Speaker 1: Which has a base in California.

[00:15:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, which has a base in California with all of the major tech companies and, you know, talking to them and figuring out what's happened here and why it's happened. It feels like for TikTok at least, the kind of perfect storm in so much as you've got this new ownership, you've got stuff that feels political, not popping up in the usual way or not working the usual way. If the app was otherwise entirely functioning, the political argument that this is being done on purpose would have a much stronger case. But actually within the context of the app not really working, a lot of this stuff does make sense. I mean, I spend a lot of time speaking to people who work inside the companies and, for example, videos that depict violence, which obviously that Minneapolis video, the shooting does, again, often don't get recommended by the algorithms. And a lot of that's to do with TikTok's policy around violence. Which isn't always... And moderation, content moderation. And moderation, yeah. Which isn't always consistent. And in fact, there's lots of criticisms about inconsistency across all the social media platforms with how they deal with what would be perceived as, you know, violent or offensive content in whatever way. But you can see why everybody here has got a kind of different explanation for what's happening. And actually at the root of this really is a kind of lack of transparency from the companies and an acknowledgement by everyone that they actually have the ability to influence public conversation. And that is why this is something that everyone's talking about.

[00:16:49] Speaker 1: It sounds like much of the criticism that we are hearing of this new version of TikTok is coming from the political left. At least that's what, you know, we're hearing about in terms of this outcry, these allegations of censorship. So are conservatives happy with this new version of TikTok?

[00:17:05] Speaker 3: What's interesting is a lot of the people who are very supportive of Donald Trump online, what we often call the kind of MAGA, Make America Great Again, base on social media, have been very vocal about the need for freedom of expression and very concerned about allegations that the social media companies more broadly have been censoring people on the right. And there has been some evidence to support that, that sometimes moderation rules, policies weren't necessarily fairly applied. Although there are also examples of where they say there was censorship and it turned out not to be the case. Regardless, you know, they aren't really getting hooked into this TikTok conversation and are much more of the, well, actually, and this is all from just looking at their posts online, which obviously is never a reliable sort of poll, but does give you a sense of, you know, quite a lot of them are just saying, oh, great, it's American patriots who now own this site and that's good. That means we'll be able to see the truth. That's a good thing. But there are who do, you know, across the board, politically, there are lots of people who have an issue with the power that the social media companies wield and the ability to either promote or demote certain topics, which is kind of how they work.

[00:18:07] Speaker 1: Yeah. So, so if this issue was a technical glitch or a power outage, were videos that might have been promoted or shared by folks who are more conservative, were they also getting tripped up? Yeah.

[00:18:22] Speaker 3: So what we do know is that a variety of users, both who appear to be left and right leaning and not into politics at all, have complained about not getting views on their video. They know their videos aren't being recommended or promoted because they're getting zero views. There are quite a few influencers who've come out to say, oh, hang on a second. Basically I make my living on TikTok, having this profile here and being able to build a following. And I'm not able to access my monetization. I'm not able to use the platform in the usual way. And that is applied across the board. That's not just happening to people on the left. And even I'd noticed when I put my VPN on so I can see what people in the US are seeing that, you know, you'd get loads of old videos or content you'd already seen or, you know, all that kind of stuff, which just makes your user experience a bit less good, to be honest.

[00:19:05] Speaker 1: But then... I mean, it sounds like all these stories are colliding at the same time, that there's these accusations of censorship coming just days after a Trump backed deal went through. And that creates suspicion. And you know, yes, there is still a whole lot we don't necessarily know in this story. You say that, that it's rather opaque to cover these social media companies. But I am curious that as we are speaking now, what does this story tell us about how social media users in the US are feeling about the state of social media?

[00:19:36] Speaker 3: I think that it highlights something very important, which is everybody really across the board has come to acknowledge that the social media sites are integrated in our way of life. And they have a huge amount of power when it comes to their ability to shape the narrative politically. A lot of politicians across the board, we've spoken about Donald Trump, we've spoken about Gavin Newsom, have got good at trying to game the algorithms, the recommendation systems to get their stuff promoted. And everyone sees how these apps are a really vital way when you're a political campaigner or otherwise, to reach the public and to share and shape views. And we've seen that happen across all of the social media sites. I think what this tells us fundamentally is that there is both an acknowledgement of that power by the public in the US, but there is also a deep distrust that exists of the social media companies because of that opaque, you know, lack of information. We don't really know what's going on here because people see how much power that they do have. And because Donald Trump has very much during this presidency aligned himself with the big social media companies. We've seen those images of him having dinner with Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and the bosses of some of the big AI companies and other big tech companies. And whenever there is any kind of seeming alliance or agreeability, which is unsurprising given that these are very rich and successful US companies, which you'd imagine Donald Trump would want to back regardless anyways, although he has been critical of them in the past for different reasons, again, around this censorship thing. But basically, when you have that kind of like political link to these kinds of companies that will foster distrust actually across the board, but particularly, I guess, for the people who don't like the person who is politically aligning themselves to the companies, which is the people who don't like Donald Trump very much, which is where a lot of this criticism has come from.

[00:21:31] Speaker 1: It strikes me that this is a story that is bigger than this particular online moment, that this is a story of culture and what is happening in the US right now. Sitting here in Washington, DC, there is a sense that America, as we've known it for years, is unraveling, that this moment in Minnesota is a bit of a Rorschach test and how it's being perceived online. You'll see those on the left who feel that there is oppression of free speech and protest. And on the right, you hear of this idea of an insurgency against an elected government that is carrying out their perceived mandate. I want to know from your vantage point, Mariana, what you think this story tells us about the US in this moment.

[00:22:19] Speaker 3: I think this story is about the power that the social media companies have. And it's about the way that geopolitics and politics and social media and everything else have all kind of fused together and distrust in politicians and distrust in the companies and have created this environment where, you know, a combination of events, which could have kind of happened slightly at random, but also kind of appeared to be connected, which is how often conspiracy content does spread. But sometimes often these illegitimate things people are raising, how that can kind of create this environment where people don't know what to trust and people are looking for clues constantly themselves. And if you're someone who doesn't use TikTok or doesn't use social media, this story affects you because the relationship these companies have with the administration in the US kind of affects not just US users, but actually everyone all over the world. The attitude that, for example, Donald Trump has towards the way that content is moderated appears to have impacted and influenced some of the decision making that's been made at X or Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, even though they would say they're making these decisions independently. Ultimately, the political wind is affecting these companies because they don't want to be regulated. They don't want to be shut down. And that's the case why this has happened with TikTok in the first place. And politicians across the board acknowledge the power and importance of being aligned with them. So it's actually, in my view, about how social media platforms have become to some extent political weapons. But that's not to say that that's in a conspiracy theory way, e.g. people are deliberately controlling and misusing what they say. It's just that they are hugely influential and they are very not transparent about why they promote certain things and why they block certain things and why they don't. Sometimes the explanations are innocent and sometimes they're not.

[00:24:01] Speaker 1: On that note, Mariana, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. If you enjoyed today's show, then I should point out that The Global Story is also available as a podcast. You can find us every weekday on BBC.com or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.