This incident took place as Black Lives Matter activism was surging on a number of social media platforms in response to a global uprising against police brutality and racism in the U.S., drawing a powerful level of attention to it. After the issue was flagged by a Twitter user on May 28, TikTok released a statement on Twitter on May 29 saying that the glitch was also affecting random words like #hello and #cat before resolving the problem that same day. However, TikTok’s rise in popularity amid coronavirus coupled with assertions that it’s been censoring videos by people of color, and specifically, Black creators, have brought the question of whether the app supports its Black creators to the forefront.įollowing the May 19 Black Out movement organized by Lex Scott, the founder of Black Lives Matter Utah, that called on TikTok users to stand in solidarity against censorship of and racism against Black creators, TikTok came under fire for what it said was a “technical glitch” that affected the view count displays on videos tagged with the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd even though those hashtags had garnered upwards of 1 billion views as protest content skyrocketed. Some point toward the bias in the habits of active users as the most influential indicator of what content users see rather than intentional direct racism. Due to the nature of the concept of shadow banning, it’s difficult to substantiate whether it is or isn’t happening. Referring to the alleged practice of limiting the spread of content without notifying creators that it violates any community guidelines, shadow banning has become an increasingly widespread concern among users on not only TikTok, but also Twitter and Instagram.
When asked to address the claims of sources in this story, Kudzi Chikumbu, the Director of Creator Community of TikTok U.S., tells TIME that TikTok “unequivocally” does not engage in shadow banning, an umbrella term under which these types of discrimination claims often fall. Even on the heels of TikTok’s pledge to effect positive change for its Black creators, some users say they’re still seeing similar patterns of unequal treatment play out on the platform. A number of creators who TIME spoke to say they have either experienced noticeable declines in viewership and engagement on their videos after posting content in support of the Black Lives Matter movement or noticed recent instances where they felt that TikTok’s community guidelines weren’t being fairly applied to Black creators.
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