After social media users accused TikTok of banning Black Lives Matter hashtags, the makers of the short video app blamed it on a technical glitch. With cities across the US embroiled in protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, some people noted that they couldn’t use hashtags related to the protests. A response from TikTok on Twitter said it was a technical issue that affected a range of random terms, including “cats” and “hello.”
TikTok later said that the issue affected view counts of hashtags displayed while users uploaded videos, but it added that it didn’t affect the hashtags themselves or discovery of content using them. The issue has since been fixed, TikTok said, which was confirmed by a fact check from Reuters.
TikTok is facing increasing scrutiny from American politicians amid rising tension between the US and China. Beijing-based Bytedance, the maker of TikTok, is now seeking to move decision making and development for the app outside China, Reuters reported last week. TikTok also recently poached former Disney executive Kevin Mayer to be its CEO.