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TikTok US has rejected allegations that its new American leadership is exercising excessive control over user content, attributing widespread glitches to technical hurdles. Since becoming a standalone American entity last week, the platform has been hit by thousands of user reports citing errors and posting failures. A spokesperson reiterated on Friday that these disruptions are purely a result of the complex transition to a separate entity and are not a deliberate effort to moderate or restrict viral content.
"We've made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner," the spokesperson said. "However, the US user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content."
They also pushed back on users' claims they were not able to use the name "Epstein" on TikTok. It refers to Jeffrey Epstein, the dead convicted sex offender and financier. The Trump administration has continued to face fierce scrutiny for its handling of the Epstein case.
TikTok said there are no rules against sharing the name "Epstein" in direct messages.
Last Thursday, a deal was concluded to split off the US division of the app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Just days after it changed hands, thousands of American users began reporting problems including seeing "zero views" on new posts.
While the TikTok said problems identified with the platform are being addressed, California Governor Gavin Newsom has nevertheless announced an investigation into claims TikTok has censored content which is critical of the Trump administration.
Many also reported being unable to see political posts, such as content criticising the shooting by federal agents of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday.
Newsom's office said it has received confirmed reports of TikTok suppressing content critical of US President Donald Trump.
"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," the California governor's office wrote on X on Monday.
His post linked to another X user's post containing a screenshot from TikTok, that appeared to show the video-sharing app flagging up a message they tried to send saying "Epstein".
It said Newsom would be "launching a review of this content" and probe whether the company had violated the state's laws.
The same flag seemingly appeared for other US TikTok users when they tried to message others with the Epstein surname, according to social media posts.
Many users are speculating that this, combined with some political content not displaying in the app's For You feed or in search, may be censorship.
The new US entity is being managed by a consortium of investors. These include Oracle, a cloud computing giant and sole data center partner for TikTok US, which is chaired by Larry Ellison, a Republican mega-donor and longtime Trump ally. US firm Silver Lake and Emirati investor MGX also own stakes. Bytedance maintains a 19.9% holding in the US business.
In addition, Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Computer Corp, is a Trump donor and an investor in TikTok US.
