After a U.S.-led investor consortium led by Oracle’s Larry Ellison took control of TikTok’s American operations, users alleged the app was throttling videos about Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Posts about the perceived suppression went viral on other social platforms, the hashtag #TikTokCensorship trended, many users downloaded TikTok alternatives, and state and international officials called for probes.
A new analysis published in Good Authority by eight academics challenges the claim of systematic political censorship. The researchers studied viewership metrics across more than 100,000 videos and tracked how TikTok recommended content about ICE, Alex Pretti, Renee Good (the woman killed by an ICE agent), and keywords such as “Trump” and “Epstein,” comparing those to nonpolitical posts like food recipes and Oscars coverage.
Their findings point to a platform-wide disruption tied to a data center outage rather than targeted suppression. Around the outage, “posts about all of these topics dropped to almost zero,” the authors wrote. Total views plunged after the outage and later began to rebound, indicating the decline affected many categories of content, not just political topics.
The researchers caution, however, that the publicly available data cannot rule out subtler forms of moderation. Small numbers of posts could have been removed or shadowbanned in ways invisible in aggregate trends, and private direct messages—where some users said words like “Epstein” were blocked—aren’t accessible for study. More broadly, TikTok does not provide the researcher access needed to comprehensively audit its recommender system to determine what is amplified or suppressed and why.
The analysts urge TikTok and other platforms to give third-party researchers ways to examine recommender systems for undue political influence. The timing of the outage and takeover heightened concern because Ellison is a prominent ally of former President Trump and the Ellison family has reshaped media properties in ways critics say favor conservatives. “The new owners will have to earn the trust of Americans,” said Anupam Chander, a Georgetown law and technology professor. He added that TikTok could demonstrate neutrality by welcoming academics and hiring respected liberals.
TikTok’s new U.S. investors include Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Emirati investment company MGX. ByteDance, the Chinese parent, retains a minority stake in the U.S. entity and will continue to own and retrain the algorithm using Americans’ data; Oracle is to supervise the algorithm. Some observers question whether that arrangement fully insulates the algorithm from foreign influence.
A TikTok spokeswoman said there have been no algorithm changes since the new investors took over U.S. operations. Researchers say such statements are difficult to verify without more extensive platform data. “Right now, TikTok can say just about anything related to algorithm changes and we can’t verify it,” said Benjamin Guinaudeau, a Université Laval professor and co-author of the analysis. He added that massive, obvious changes would be detectable, but subtle shifts to the “For You” recommender are nearly impossible to spot without broader data access.