THE NEW YORK TIMES: TikTok blames technical problems after users claim it blocked ICE posts
TikTok said on Tuesday that its app was facing technical problems after users accused the service of suppressing posts related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
TikTok’s US operations said in a statement Monday that a power outage at a US data centre had impeded users from uploading new videos. It said that some videos also inaccurately showed that they had zero views or likes.
Some TikTok users, including comedian Megan Stalter, have accused the app of blocking them from posting videos about ICE or limiting the reach of those videos.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-Calif., who is running for Congress, said on social platform X that he had posted about legislation that would allow lawsuits against ICE agents.
Mr Wiener said the post was “sitting at zero views, and I’m not the only person this is happening to.”
It’s an early test for the app after its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, last week spun off its US operations into a new joint venture controlled by non-Chinese investors.
Those investors include firms close to President Donald Trump, including cloud computing giant Oracle and Emirati investment firm MGX.
The investors’ association with Mr Trump had raised concerns among some TikTok users that the new venture would slant the app’s content in a more conservative direction.
A spokesperson for TikTok said Tuesday that the new US entity had not updated its algorithm since the joint venture was announced. As part of the agreement to spin out the new venture, TikTok’s US operation is planning to retrain the content recommendation algorithm that it will be licensing from ByteDance.
The creation of the US TikTok was aimed at addressing long-standing national security concerns about ByteDance’s ties to China.
On Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., reshared a post on X from before Mr Pretti was killed that accused TikTok of “censoring” content critical of Mr Trump and ICE. “I know it’s hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list,” Murphy wrote in his post.
A spokesperson for the app said in an email that it was “inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2026 The New York Times Company
Originally published on The New York Times
