California governor Gavin Newsom has accused TikTok of suppressing content critical of president Donald Trump, as he launched a review of the platform’s content moderation practices to determine if they violated state law, even as the platform blamed a systems failure for the issues.
The step comes after TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, said last week it had finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture that will secure US data, to avoid a US ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans.
“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,” Newsom’s office said on X on Monday, without elaborating.
“Gavin Newsom is launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law,” it added.
In response, a representative for the the joint venture for TikTok in the US pointed to a prior statement that blamed a data centre power outage, adding, “It would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Users may notice bugs, slower load times or timed-out requests when posting new content due to the impact of the outage, the joint venture added.
“While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve,” it said in the statement posted online before Newsom’s remarks.
Newsom, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, have long been critical of each other. Newsom’s accusation on Monday came as a number of users on TikTok reported abnormalities and accused the platform of censoring their posts.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Law, said a video he recorded about reports federal immigration officers could use sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant had been placed “under review”.
Casey Fiesler, an expert in technology ethics and internet law at the University of Colorado told CNN it was “not surprising that there’s a significant lack of trust” in TikTok’s new ownership. She told the outlet that she had problems uploading videos that alluded to the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Last week’s TikTok deal was a milestone for the firm after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
ByteDance said TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC would secure US user data, apps and algorithms through data privacy and cybersecurity measures, in a deal praised by Trump.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1% of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9%.
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors, cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, will hold a stake of 15%.
The US and Chinese governments had signed off on the deal, a White House official said.
With Reuters
