Summary
TikTok users reported that searches for anti-Trump content, such as “Donald Trump rigged election,” returned “No results found” messages in the U.S., while the same searches worked abroad.
Users demonstrated via VPNs that the restrictions seem specific to U.S. accounts, sparking accusations of censorship and claims TikTok is becoming “Trump’s propaganda arm.”
Some anti-Trump hashtags also appear blocked, while pro-Trump terms remain visible.
TikTok has not commented on the issue, fueling further concerns about free speech and potential political influence over the platform.
The law that banned tiktok was about national security concerns of foreign companies. It does not apply to US-based social media companies.
Trump used an executive order to delay the law by 90 days. This is coercive in nature. It makes Trump look like the good guy to millions of tiktok users in the US for “saving” tiktok. It also lets Trump extort ByteDance via manipulation of TikTok (pushing US propaganda) in exchange for staying in the US market.
You should really go read the law instead of the marketing they used. There is no requirement for fact finding. It’s an executive decision. That’s it. The President’s guy declares your company to be a foreign adversary controlled social media company and that’s it. Sell or shut down.
I read the law, and I disagree with you that the president can simply declare a social media company to be foreign-adversary controlled and shut it down with an EO. At the very least there is an appeals process that would go through DC court of appeals for any accused social media company. I am not a lawyer though, so I could be wrong. Either way, I think it gives the president too much power.
But this doesn’t change the fact that ByteDance is still being manipulated by the president for power and propaganda purposes; that seems pretty clear to me when searches critical of trump came up empty on accounts using US IP addresses, as opposed to non-US accounts or US accounts using a VPN.
Then you’ve fallen for this bit of misinformation too. I already submitted a screenshot showing that searches critical of Trump are actually still working. They found one specific phrase tied to a conspiracy theory. That’s it.
And I’d like to know where in the law this appeals court remedy is mentioned as I did not see that.