{"id":440233,"date":"2026-01-27T07:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440233\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:38:08","slug":"california-governor-gavin-newsom-accuses-tiktok-of-suppressing-content-critical-of-trump-tiktok","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440233\/","title":{"rendered":"California governor Gavin Newsom accuses TikTok of suppressing content critical of Trump | TikTok"},"content":{"rendered":"

California governor Gavin Newsom has accused TikTok<\/a> of suppressing content critical of president Donald Trump, as he launched a review of the platform\u2019s content moderation practices to determine if they violated state law, even as the platform blamed a systems failure for the issues.<\/p>\n

The step comes after TikTok\u2019s Chinese owner, ByteDance, said last week it had finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture<\/a> that will secure US data, to avoid a US ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing TikTok\u2019s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports, and independently confirmed instances, of suppressed content critical of President Trump,\u201d Newsom\u2019s office said on X on Monday, without elaborating.<\/p>\n

\u201cGavin Newsom is launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

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, \u201cIt would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we\u2019ve transparently confirmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we\u2019ve been working to resolve,\u201d it said in the statement posted online before Newsom\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

Newsom, a Democrat, and Trump<\/a>, a Republican, have long been critical of each other. Newsom\u2019s accusation on Monday came as a number of users on TikTok reported abnormalities and accused the platform of censoring their posts.<\/p>\n

Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University\u2019s School of Law, said a video he recorded about reports federal immigration officers could use sweeping power to forcibly enter people\u2019s homes without a judge\u2019s warrant had been placed \u201cunder review\u201d.<\/p>\n

Casey Fiesler, an expert in technology ethics and internet law at the University of Colorado told CNN it was \u201cnot surprising that there\u2019s a significant lack of trust\u201d in TikTok\u2019s new ownership. She told the outlet that she had problems uploading videos that alluded to the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s TikTok deal was a milestone<\/a> for the firm after years of battles with the US government over Washington\u2019s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.<\/p>\n

The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1% of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9%.<\/p>\n

Each of the joint venture\u2019s 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%.<\/p>\n

The US and Chinese governments had signed off on the deal, a White House official said.<\/p>\n

With Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California governor Gavin Newsom has accused TikTok of suppressing content critical of president Donald Trump, as he launched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-440233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}