TikTok publicly apologizes for suspending an account of a teenager who has become viral for using her videos disguised as a make-up lesson to make a statement about Chinese Treatment of Muslims. Teenager Ferora Aziz says she has since regained access to his TikTok account, which was suspended shortly after using it to publish a series of videos earlier this week that have been viewed more than 1.5 million times.
In a statement released Wednesday on the TikTok website, the company also supported its initial decision to suspend the Aziz account, but also acknowledged that the moderation process “will not be perfect”.
Aziz ran all the social networks by posting his videos on his TikTok account, @getmefamouspartthree It was a series of makeup classes. However, after a few seconds, each video passes to Aziza, which encourages viewers to learn how China treats Muslim Uyghurs.
Aziz in his videos explains that they are designed to trick TikTok moderators of hacking and deleting its content. TikTok, an application not available in China but owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is increasingly monitored because it fears that censorship of content is considered “culturally problematic” and offensive to the Chinese government.
In addition, others claim that TikTok specifically restricts content related to “Social and Political Topics.” When democracy demonstrations erupted in Hong Kong earlier this year, TikTok was curiously devoid of all fuss and the video instead documented a more beautiful picture. TikTok, meanwhile, continues to insist on its independence from China.
As a result, Aziz became suspicious when she received a message from TikTok shortly after the release of her video: her score was “Temporarily suspended due to numerous violations of our community regulations,” she wrote.
Aziz quarreled on Twitter that his account was suspended “for trying to spread the word”. However, TikTok said his account was suspended because he was linked to another of his accounts, @getmefamousplzsir, which had been blocked for breaking the rules.
Ticktok said The ban on Aziz’s second account was part of the “platform-wide implementation” of some violations, including videos containing “terrorists or terrorist images”. TikTok pointed to the video in which Osama Bin Laden’s image flashes on the screen.
-ALEXANDRA MA (@ ALEXANDRAMA15) NOVEMBER 27, 2019
TikTok said in a statement that although it “recognizes (a) that this video could have been supposed to be a satire”, it adheres to a strict policy.
In a statement released on Wednesday, TikTok said the suspension of Aziz’s account and its appeal video in China were two separate and unrelated incidents. In addition, TikTok accused “the moderator’s human error” of provoking Aziz’s video of how China treats Muslims for missing the platform on Wednesday morning for 50 minutes.
Aziz tweeted where she said she did not believe that the situation regarding her TikTok account was a coincidence, said the company.
“Do I think they took it because of an unrelated satirical video that was removed from my previously deleted account? Immediately after finishing publishing a 3-part video about Uyghurs? “Wrote Aziz. “No”
-FEROZA.X (@X_FEROZA) NOVEMBER 27, 2019
China is accused of running detention centers in the autonomous west of Xinjiang. Interviews with people detained in the camps revealed allegations of beatings and starvation, as well as medical experiments on prisoners.
China has acknowledged the existence of “re-education camps” but has repeatedly denied any reports of abuse in its facilities.
The population of the region is about 10 million, many of whom are Uyghurs or other ethnic minorities. In May, US Secretary of Defense Randall Shriver said at least “one million, but probably more than 3 million citizens” had been arrested. country. objects.
Satellite images scanned by the National Movement for the Wake of East Turkestan, based in Washington earlier this month, revealed at least 465 detention centers, forced labor camps and alleged prisons in Xinjiang.
And the recent leak of Chinese government secret documents known as “Chinese Cables” has provided a guide to the operation of detention centers, ranging from leakage prevention to double lockdowns to the use of a “computer system”. glasses “based on behavior related” directly to rewards, punishments and family visits. “