TikTok said on Tuesday that technical issues caused posting problems after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a probe into the company for allegedly censoring content critical of US President Donald Trump. This came days after the short video app operator closed a deal with the Trump administration to avoid a US ban.
Newsom said on Monday via social media that he was launching a review into whether TikTok violated state law, citing another user’s post showing that a message reading “epstein” was blocked by the platform.
“It’s time to investigate,” Newsom wrote.
Trump has denied involvement in a widening scandal centred around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, involved in the trafficking and abuse of underage girls.
The governor’s press office wrote in a separate post on Monday that TikTok had “suppressed” content critical of Trump following its sale to a “Trump-aligned business group”. The office said that Newsom, a Democrat, is reviewing this conduct and called for the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violated California law.
TikTok USDS Joint Venture, the firm’s newly established US operation, said on Monday in an earlier posting before Newsom’s statements that a power outage at one of its US data centre partner sites had caused “a cascading systems failure”, and that users might experience multiple bugs.
The company then followed up on Tuesday saying that it had made “significant progress” in recovering its infrastructure even though users may still experience issues.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Newsom’s accusations. The company told Reuters on Monday that it would be “inaccurate” to report the platform issues as “anything but” the technical problems it had “transparently confirmed”.
While a deal with the Trump administration has allowed TikTok to retain its nearly 200 million American users, Newsom’s probe highlighted the complex political environment the firm must continue navigating amid mounting bipartisan friction.
Newsom, seen as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump, a Republican, recently slamming European leaders in Davos as “pathetic” for not standing up to the US president. Newsom’s press office then accused the Trump administration of blocking the governor’s entry at an event in Davos.
The years-long US-China tussle over TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, appeared to draw to a close last week when the company announced the new joint venture, which it said complied with US regulatory requirements.
The new US joint venture, majority-owned by a consortium of US investors including Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX, will operate as an independent entity in control of its algorithms, data protection and content moderation, the company said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The embassy said last week that it had nothing to share about the deal’s reportedly official approval from Beijing. ByteDance retains 19.9 per cent of the joint venture under the arrangement.
TikTok has settled a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff identified as KGM that accused the company and other social media platforms, including Meta, YouTube and Snap, of designing products in ways that hook young users. Joseph VanZandt of the Beasley Allen law firm, co-lead counsel for the plaintiff, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday that KGM had reached an agreement in principle with TikTok, without disclosing details of the settlement.
KGM’s trial will proceed as scheduled against Meta and YouTube, with jury selection starting on Tuesday and opening statements expected next week, VanZandt said. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
