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On Twitter, there's a bunch of reports that TikTok suddenly prevents people from sending the word "Epstein" in DMs [1]. I had expected an Orbanisation (aka, wh

On Twitter, there's a bunch of reports that TikTok suddenly prevents people from sending the word "Epstein" in DMs [1]. I had expected an Orbanisation (aka, what happened to the media sphere in Hungary after Orban took over and his cronies bought up almost all media) of Tiktok, but not that fast, it's like less than a week after the deal [2]. Scary shit if you ask me, and it's made scarier by the fact that Tiktok has already been changing the way our youth speaks due to evading censorship (e.g. "graped" instead of "raped", "unalived" instead of kill/murder/execute/suicide). [1] https://x.com/krassenstein/status/2015911471507530219 https://x.com/krassenstein/status/2015911471507530219 [2] https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/heres-whats-you-should-know-about-the-us-tiktok-deal/ https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/heres-whats-you-should-kno...

inetknght 9mo ago
> but not that fast Why not? All the tech was already put in place by China. All that the U.S. had to do was change the filtered words.
- mschuster91 9mo ago
  I had expected a longer "cooldown" time so that people don't immediately jump to the conclusion that the forced TikTok sale was to suppress discussion of the Epstein files.
  - pjc50 9mo ago
    No, the forced bipartisan support TikTok sale was to suppress discussion of Palestine.
  - afpx 9mo ago
    It’s so blatant, it’s more like trolling at this point.
- sosomoxie 9mo ago
  What words were China filtering? I've never seen reports of censorship like this on TikTok before Ellison bought it.
  - netsharc 9mo ago
    On WeChat lots of things are censored, almost keyword based. E.g. a building collapses, you want to talk about it to your friends, your message can't be sent because it'll be deemed to be trying to cause social unrest.. Duoyin (Chinese version of TikTok) would definitely not be different..
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - dns_snek 9mo ago
    Enough of them to give rise to the term "algospeak" which means using words like "unalive" in place of "kill" to avoid automated censorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algospeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algospeak Meanwhile you can report a bot who's posted 20+ comments under a video to advertise illegal drugs and all of the reports and subsequent appeals will consistently come back as "No violation found".
    - sunaookami 9mo ago
      This has been happening for 10+ years on e.g. YouTube, you can't say certain words in the video or mention them in the title or you get demonetized. Nothing to do with China.
      - dns_snek 9mo ago
        >> All the tech was already put in place by China. All that the U.S. had to do was change the filtered words. > I've never seen reports of censorship like this on TikTok before Ellison bought it.
      - inetknght 9mo ago
        > you can't say certain words in the video or mention them in the title or you get demonetized That's not censorship problems. That's advertisement problems. That's conflicts of interest problems. That's incentives problems. That's people-who-post-videos-just-to-make-money problems. Well, okay, it can easily be turned into censorship problems: instead of just demonetizing the video, don't show it to anyone. It's quite a fine line, but the line is indeed there.
- netsharc 9mo ago
  But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now"... If it's a slow descent, people might accept the madness (imagine if a bombshell report showed Biden had links to Epstein, sexually assaulted 20+ women, and was moaning about the Nobel Peace Prize to the prime minister of Norway)... Somehow I'm optimistic that this means the Trump Regime is on its last legs. But well, what's the quote about underestimating the stupidity of the American public?
  - inetknght 9mo ago
    > But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now" Yup!
  - deaux 9mo ago
    > But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now" Huh? They clearly are different - they have all the drawbacks with none of the positives.
    - direwolf20 9mo ago
      Yeah, the CCP brought more people out of poverty than any other system including capitalism.
JKCalhoun 9mo ago
Also: https://www.the-independent.com/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-censorship-ice-b2908309.html https://www.the-independent.com/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-ce...
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
pjc50 9mo ago
The Epstein situation is .. weird. On the one hand, it's a massive nexus of corruption and abuse. On the other hand, it's just .. evidence. Nobody cares about evidence, they've already decided they want to protect the Trump administration no matter what. Rather like ICE shooting legal gun owner US civilians.
Sugimot0 9mo ago
Funny how all the people contesting other adjacent comments are noticeably absent here. It's silly in the first place, given the US government and Israeli officials were very clear in their bluntly stated aims with the tiktok take over, what we're seeing now is just the execution of clearly stated intentions, too many ideologues are in denial.

inetknght 9mo ago

> but not that fast Why not? All the tech was already put in place by China. All that the U.S. had to do was change the filtered words.

mschuster91 9mo ago
I had expected a longer "cooldown" time so that people don't immediately jump to the conclusion that the forced TikTok sale was to suppress discussion of the Epstein files.
- pjc50 9mo ago
  No, the forced bipartisan support TikTok sale was to suppress discussion of Palestine.
- afpx 9mo ago
  It’s so blatant, it’s more like trolling at this point.
sosomoxie 9mo ago
What words were China filtering? I've never seen reports of censorship like this on TikTok before Ellison bought it.
- netsharc 9mo ago
  On WeChat lots of things are censored, almost keyword based. E.g. a building collapses, you want to talk about it to your friends, your message can't be sent because it'll be deemed to be trying to cause social unrest.. Duoyin (Chinese version of TikTok) would definitely not be different..
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- dns_snek 9mo ago
  Enough of them to give rise to the term "algospeak" which means using words like "unalive" in place of "kill" to avoid automated censorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algospeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algospeak Meanwhile you can report a bot who's posted 20+ comments under a video to advertise illegal drugs and all of the reports and subsequent appeals will consistently come back as "No violation found".
  - sunaookami 9mo ago
    This has been happening for 10+ years on e.g. YouTube, you can't say certain words in the video or mention them in the title or you get demonetized. Nothing to do with China.
    - dns_snek 9mo ago
      >> All the tech was already put in place by China. All that the U.S. had to do was change the filtered words. > I've never seen reports of censorship like this on TikTok before Ellison bought it.
    - inetknght 9mo ago
      > you can't say certain words in the video or mention them in the title or you get demonetized That's not censorship problems. That's advertisement problems. That's conflicts of interest problems. That's incentives problems. That's people-who-post-videos-just-to-make-money problems. Well, okay, it can easily be turned into censorship problems: instead of just demonetizing the video, don't show it to anyone. It's quite a fine line, but the line is indeed there.
netsharc 9mo ago
But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now"... If it's a slow descent, people might accept the madness (imagine if a bombshell report showed Biden had links to Epstein, sexually assaulted 20+ women, and was moaning about the Nobel Peace Prize to the prime minister of Norway)... Somehow I'm optimistic that this means the Trump Regime is on its last legs. But well, what's the quote about underestimating the stupidity of the American public?
- inetknght 9mo ago
  > But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now" Yup!
- deaux 9mo ago
  > But this blatant move shows "We're no different to the Chinese ruling party now" Huh? They clearly are different - they have all the drawbacks with none of the positives.
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    Yeah, the CCP brought more people out of poverty than any other system including capitalism.

JKCalhoun 9mo ago

Also: https://www.the-independent.com/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-censorship-ice-b2908309.html https://www.the-independent.com/tech/tiktok-epstein-trump-ce...

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

pjc50 9mo ago

The Epstein situation is .. weird. On the one hand, it's a massive nexus of corruption and abuse. On the other hand, it's just .. evidence. Nobody cares about evidence, they've already decided they want to protect the Trump administration no matter what. Rather like ICE shooting legal gun owner US civilians.

Sugimot0 9mo ago

Funny how all the people contesting other adjacent comments are noticeably absent here. It's silly in the first place, given the US government and Israeli officials were very clear in their bluntly stated aims with the tiktok take over, what we're seeing now is just the execution of clearly stated intentions, too many ideologues are in denial.