Beijing, Chinese short-video making platform TikTok has apologised and restored the account of a US teenager, blocked after she posted a video criticising the Chinese government over its treatment of Uighur Muslims.
TikTok said the account was blocked due to the conduct of the 17-year-old named Feroza Aziz and had nothing to do with Chinese politics.
“On a previous account (@getmefamousplzsir), a TikTok user posted a video that included the image of Osama bin Laden, resulting in an account ban in line with TikTok’s policies against content that includes imagery related to terrorists. No China-related content was moderated on this account,” Eric Han, Head of Safety, TikTok US, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
The short-video making platform also blames a “human moderation error”, which saw Aziz’s video removed from the platform on Wednesday for 50 minutes.
“Due to a human moderation error, the viral video from November 23 was removed. It’s important to clarify that nothing in our Community Guidelines precludes content such as this video, and it should not have been removed,” Han said.