The chair of a House committee on China’s Communist Party and other MPs expressed “deep concern” on Thursday about TikTok censorship of an account that posted content from a film on pro-democracy Hong Kong entrepreneur Jimmy Lai.
In a letter to TikTok CEO Show Zi Chew, Representative Mike Gallagher and 12 other Republican legislators stated that they seek “additional information about TikTok’s content moderation policies and practises.”
The Acton Institute, based in Michigan, announced last week that its TikTok account had been suspended for posting video from the film about Lai. According to the MPs, the account was reinstated following media reports about the ban.
TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, told U.S. senators in a letter dated May 4 that “TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities” and does not enhance content “in the U.S. at the request of any government, including the Chinese Communist Party.”
The Chinese-owned short video app has come under severe investigation in Western countries, and the Biden administration has requested that TikTok’s Chinese owners divest their shares or face a ban in the United States.