this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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TikTok claimed bugs blocked anti-ICE videos, Epstein mentions; experts call BS (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 day ago by tonytins@pawb.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/59392382

TikTok wants users to believe that errors blocking uploads of anti-ICE videos or direct messages mentioning Jeffrey Epstein are due to technical errors—not the platform seemingly shifting to censor content critical of Donald Trump after he hand-picked the US owners who took over the app last week.

However, experts say that TikTok users’ censorship fears are justified, whether the bugs are to blame or not.

Ioana Literat, an associate professor of technology, media, and learning at Teachers College, Columbia University, has studied TikTok’s politics since the app first shot to popularity in the US in 2018. She told Ars that “users’ fears are absolutely justified” and explained why the “bugs” explanation is “insufficient.”

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[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

We were developing a feature to push for those posts, but a bug made it so that they were blocked.

I guess this is one of the few cases in which that could be the result of a bug.

[–] neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 hours ago

Not a chance. Not even remotely possible if they have automated testing (which they do) and qa staff verifying features (which they also do), and smoke/regression tests after deployment (which they do).

I've worked in this industry for 30 years, and the chance that that's what happened, immediately after a takeover by people who really don't want those terms searched on, and the feature was released in that state, and stayed in that state without a hotfix or patch going out and it wasn't caught by their own testers, is practically nil.