The Chinese-owned social media app TikTok has often been accused of pandering to liberal viewpoints at the expense of conservative creators. Fox News Digital spoke to several right-of-center voices who say the app shuts down debate and alternative view points.
“Being a conservative on TikTok is not the easiest thing in the world,” radio host and influencer Victor Nieves told Fox News Digital. “You get censored, you get shadow-banned, and your content gets taken down.”
“Shadow-banned” is internet slang for an internet moderator not removing someone’s account but changing the algorithm to ensure no one sees their content.
According to creators, TikTok shadow-bans typically last around two weeks but can be renewed.
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“Here’s how my following works,” The Older Millennial, an Army Special Operations veteran, told Fox News Digital. “I create a new account and in about 90 days I get to about 250,000 followers. Any video which breaks 20,000 views, which is almost all of them, gets reported the next day and taken down. I appeal this, which I always win, but since it’s been reported the video doesn’t get as many views and the strike stays on.”
“So after four months I have no actual violations, I’ve won all my appeals,” he continues. “But all of the strikes have piled up because of the reports so they take down the account permanently. In fact the day you reached out to me about the interview, the account you reached out to me on was permanently taken down.”
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This was a common pattern, according to creators who spoke with Fox News – all of whom were on their third, fifth, and even 13th accounts. TikTok, however, denies this claim and maintains that strikes do not linger upon being successfully repealed.
Additionally, the creators say they have observed a double standard between them and their liberal counterparts.
“There are a lot of double standards between me and the leftist counterpoints,” creator and Turning Point USA contributor Morgonn McMichael told Fox News Digital. “Especially considering gender ideology, what a woman is, race, anything that does not fit in the box of what the woke left is trying to push on the app, TikTok takes down your content.”
“You’ll see liberal creators going after conservative creators, getting disgusting with them, doxing them, finding their personal information, finding their jobs, and those videos don’t get taken down,” creator Clarkson Lawson told Fox News Digital. “Yet my video stating ‘your opinion is wrong and here’s why’ gets taken down for harassment and bullying.”
A TikTok spokesperson told Fox News Digital that there is no double standard in enforcement and that they follow their community guidelines to the letter. However, arbitrary enforcement of the guidelines leads to situations where creators can make statements such as “now you know why I hate Christians” or “all white people are racist” without having their videos taken down for hate speech based on race and religion. When presented with examples of these videos and asked why they were allowed to remain, TikTok claimed they did not violate community guidelines.
“We do not moderate or remove content based on political sensitivities and nothing in our moderation practices would seek to discriminate against any creator or community on our platform,” TikTok told Fox News Digital.
TikTok’s website maintains that the company consulted “over 100 organizations” when writing their guidelines, but refused to reveal those organizations and the role they played in the process.
There has been recent controversy on the political side of TikTok upon learning multiple left-leaning creators, including Harry J. Nisson, Under the Desk News, and Chris Mowrey, are employed by Palette Management, which receives payments from the Democratic National Committee, to produce content. Speaking on the controversy, the conservative creators believe it is a viable model for the future of right-leaning engagement.
“Well it’s all as simple as we thought it was, we knew they were getting paid to rattle this stuff off,” The Older Millennial told Fox News Digital. “I don’t think the RNC [Republican National Committee] should do something similar, but I think they should amplify the voices of conservative creators on the app; partner with us, work with us, but don’t pay us because when money exchanges hands there’s always going to be a question of authenticity.”
TikTok has been facing heat in recent months for accusations of spying on behalf of the Chinese government and algorithmic bias against conservative creators. TikTok has been banned on government phones in 34 states, most federal agencies, and talks over a total TikTok ban in the United States have persisted in Congress.
Ultimately, when asked why they continue to be on the app, the creators gave a similar answer.
“There really is a necessity for conservative voices to be on these large corporate platforms,” McMichael told Fox News Digital. “Because if our voices are silenced, and we don’t continue to be on these platforms, then there’s going to be no one else on there except for alternative opinions who don’t agree with ours.”
