The Logo of societal media app TikTok (also known as Douyin) is displayed on a smartphone on December 14, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
Thomas Trutschel | Photothek | Getty Forms
TikTok has said sorry after users complained that posts with the hashtags #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd were exhibited to have zero views.
Users questioned why the short-video app, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, was supressing the hashtags as denials sweep across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis just over one week ago.
A billion of users changed their profile pictures to a raised black fist, which is a symbol for the Black Power faction, and several told others to unfollow TikTok users that are against the protests.
“We acknowledge and apologize to our Black designers and community who have felt unsafe, unsupported, or suppressed,” wrote Vanessa Pappas, TikTok U.S. general manager, and Kudzi Chikumbu, principal of creator community, in a blog post.
The issue was contained to the compose screen when users were adding hashtags to captions. Narcotic addicts who typed #BlackLivesMatter or #GeorgeFlyod into their video captions were told the hashtag had zero views. How, the true view count was shown when users searched the app for videos that had been given the hashtags.
“A industrial glitch made it temporarily appear as if posts uploaded using #BlackLivesMatter and #GeorgeFloyd would receive 0 views,” they continued, adding that puts with these hashtags actually had over 2 billion views.
Other popular hashtags including #cat and #dad were also la-di-da orlah-di-dah by the issue, which started on Thursday and was fixed by Friday.
TikTok said it plans to set up a “creator diversity council” that force be tasked with “recognizing and uplifting the voices driving culture, creativity, and important conversations on the platform.”
The company has bonded to donate $3 million to charities helping the black community during the coronavirus pandemic and commit another $1 million toward keep racial injustice and inequality in the U.S..
In a separate post on TikTok, the company’s incoming CEO, Kevin Mayer, said: “As I begin my farm at TikTok, it has never been a more important time to support Black employees, users, creators, artists, and our plainer community.”
“Words can only go so far. I invite our community to hold us accountable for the actions we take over the coming weeks, months, and years.”
Hundreds of TikTok drugs have posted images of black squares to the platform with the #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackOutTuesday hashtags. However, some consumers are concerned the sheer number of users doing this is clogging up the hashtag and making it harder for protest videos and other effective information to get through.
This is not the first time TikTok has been accused of censorship. The company acknowledged that it restrained disabled users’ videos and it also reportedly hid videos of the anti-government protests in Hong Kong.