TikTok Says It’s Not Censoring ‘Free Palestine’ Comments. Users See Something Different

On Monday, a day after TikTok came back online for the U.S., people started noticing that the app would not let them comment “free palestine.” 

Several TikTok users posted screenshots on X and Bluesky showing the message they received after trying to comment “free palestine” under other people’s posts. TikTok users started reporting this on Sunday, following a tense few hours where the app blocked U.S. users from access ahead of a potential ban, displaying instead a notification sucking up to then-incoming president Donald Trump. 

I tried this myself on Tuesday morning, using two different throwaway TikTok accounts. Using one account, I could comment “free palestine” without a problem, and that comment is still up as of Wednesday morning. Using another, my “free palestine” comments were immediately removed repeatedly, and I received a notification that I had violated the TikTok Community Guidelines. I could comment with a nonsense phrase (“free shavacado”) using that same account, however, and TikTok didn’t remove it. 

Using the account that kept getting comments removed, I could post a video with the caption “free palestine #freepalestine” on Tuesday without a problem.

A spokesperson for TikTok told 404 Media that the platform’s policies and algorithms did not change over the weekend, adding that they’re working on restoring U.S. operations back to normal. They’re expecting some “temporary instability” as services are restored, they said, which could affect some features or access. They said that TikTok does not have a policy against people saying “free palestine,” and pointed me to the platform’s community guidelines, transparency report, and moderation approach pages. 

There have been a few noteworthy instances in the last few years of social media users claiming that pro-Palestine content was being censored or downranked, only for the platforms involved to blame the issue on bugs or deny it was happening. In October 2023, 48 organizations, including 7amleh, the Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement, which advocates for digital rights of Palestinian and Arab civil society, issued a statement “urging tech companies to respect Palestinian digital rights during the ongoing war,” Al Jazeera reported.

“We are [concerned] about significant and disproportionate censorship of Palestinian voices through content takedowns and hiding hashtags, amongst other violations,” the statement said. “These restrictions on activists, civil society and human rights defenders represent a grave threat to freedom of expression and access to information, freedom of assembly, and political participation.”

Also in October 2023, on Instagram, using the “see translation” feature in bios about Palestine inserted the word “terrorist.” In March 2024, Google’s Gemini AI would not answer questions like “where is Palestine?” or “what is Palestine?” but would answer questions like “where is Israel?” or “what is Israel?” And in October 2024, Twitch admitted to temporarily blocking new users in Israel and Palestine from creating new accounts to prevent them from uploading “graphic material.” 

There is a lot of weird stuff going on with social media platforms right now, to put it as mildly as possible. One minute, TikTok is gone; the next, it’s back. One minute, people are outraged because they think they’re being forced to follow Trump on Facebook; the next, it’s obvious that the administration’s accounts have simply changed hands. All of it makes people constantly doubt, second-guess, and argue about what they see with their own eyes. 

In a lot of ways, this constant, roiling turmoil of navigating what can and can’t be said, what might get you banned, and what app is even still accessible to you anymore is exactly what a lot of marginalized people—including, especially, sex workers—have always gone through. That disparity and confusion is baked into the algorithms we are forced to coexist with online. It’s why when I wrote about getting a bizarre search result from Google’s AI Overview, the company’s spokesperson couldn’t even replicate it themselves. And now that TikTok has bent the knee to the Trump administration in a very public way—including CEO Shou Chew posting a personal message thanking the president for “his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” —everyone online is on the highest alert possible, looking for every sign and symbol that their social media platform of choice might be falling into fascist censorship. This is, as marginalized communities online have been showing us for years and as we said when Trump was elected, always the way it’s been.

About the author

Sam Cole is writing from the far reaches of the internet, about sexuality, the adult industry, online culture, and AI. She's the author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex.

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