The communist Chinese government-tied TikTok is once again illustrating that it’s nothing more than a censoring agent doing Beijing’s bidding.
The platform suspended Acton Institute Tuesday and gave “No warning” and “no explanation,” according to a press release by the organization. However, the account had only posted trailers for its documentary about Chinese political dissident and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai who bravely remained in Hong Kong as the CCP began dismantling freedoms in the area. “TikTok’s suspension of Acton Institute’s account for telling the truth about Jimmy Lai’s plight is both deplorable and predictable. Yet, truth has a way of interring its undertakers” said Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sfirico. The platform told The Wall Street Journal last night that “[t]he account was removed in error and is available again on [sic] platform.”
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider ripped TikTok for once again showing itself to be untrustworthy. “Jimmy Lai is one of the greatest freedom fighters on the planet today. As a very wealthy man, he could have left Hong Kong any time but he chose to stay and fight knowing the communists would try to erase him,” he said. “Now TikTok is trying to erase him just like the communist Chinese government did. This is just more evidence that there is no daylight between TikTok and the CCP.”
Acton Institute has heard mum from the platform, according to the organization’s Director of Marketing & Communications Eric Kohn. He tweeted that even after the platform restored the organization’s account, two of the organization’s videos were initially gone and then mysteriously reappeared Thursday morning.
“The two videos that @tiktok_us removed when they restored our account have now been restored, as well,” Kohn said Thursday morning. “We still haven’t heard anything directly from TikTok about why our account was suspended in the first place, why these videos were removed, how they allegedly violated the “community guidelines.”
Although TikTok reversed the suspension once the situation received media attention, the fact that it suspended Acton Institute in the first place calls into question its ties to the Chinese communist government. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr highlighted on Twitter that this event calls into question TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s comments from a congressional hearing earlier this year: “‘I want to be unequivocal on this,’ TikTok’s CEO recently testified under oath, “We do not remove or promote content on behalf of the Chinese government.’ Yet TikTok has now suspended the Acton Institute’s account after it released a powerful documentary on imprisoned Hong Kong newspaperman and democracy advocate, Jimmy Lai.” [Emphasis added.]
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