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Article

3 Dec 2019

Author:
Leo Kelion, BBC

TikTok denies content moderation over "political sensitivities" after user reported banned for posting video about China's detention camps

“Teen's TikTok video about China's Muslim camps goes viral”, 26 November 2019

A US teenager's TikTok video clip accusing China of putting Muslims into "concentration camps" has gone viral on the Chinese-owned social network…

Feroza Aziz later tweeted that TikTok had blocked her from posting new content, as a result.

TikTok has disputed this.

"TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities," a spokesman told BBC News. Although, Douyin, the Chinese version of the app, on which Ms Aziz's posts would not have appeared, is politically censored.

The company had permanently banned one of Ms Aziz's old TikTok accounts on, 15 November, for posting an unrelated video that had broken its rules on terrorism-related material, he said.

As an additional measure, it had then blocked her smartphone, on 25 November, but that too had been unrelated to her posts about China.

"Her new account and its videos, including the eyelash video in question, were not affected and continue to receive views," the spokesman added…

Ms Aziz bookends her critical comments with talk about to make eyelashes look longer.

"I say that so TikTok doesn't take down my videos," she explains in one of the recordings…