Why TikTok is being deliberately ruined by its new American owners

Remember all the hyped-up, over-the-top warnings by US politicians and pundits about the dangers posed by TikTok owned by a Chinese company? It turns out they are now doing all those terrible things and adding some threatening extras just for its American users. Who would have guessed?

In one of her latest clips, influential commentator Angela Baker of Parkrose Permaculture, who has close to half a million YouTube subscribers, complained about her TikTok experience since joining it in April 2024. “I’ve watched the platform change radically between then and now. What originally felt like a space where we were having conversations between creators. It felt productive. It felt like a community,” she said.

“It just felt positive. I felt like I was learning a lot. I was being exposed to different ideas and folks who had a really different background and lived experience than me. It felt like an enriching space. Yeah, there were silly dance videos and memes and what have you, but there were real conversations happening, real community, real education happening in that space. It’s no longer like that.”

Sensitive subjects are now heavily censored or demonetised. Politically incorrect influencers are deplatformed or demoted by TikTok’s new algorithm.

Baker said her videos repeatedly “get hit with the most bizarre community guidelines violations just for reading the headlines from CNN and the Guardian. My account got labelled for putting out terroristic threats”. Her claims are supported by other reports dating back to last year; the situation has only worsened.

According to Harvard Independent, “Critics have warned that signs of [Donald] Trump’s growing ties to TikTok’s leadership … could allude to potential government consolidation of control over online content. If political figures like Trump gain unchecked influence over what information remains visible on major platforms, ‘the very foundation of democracy is at risk’.”