When searching for hashtags with queer content, you will not get any results on TikTok in multiple languages and regions. The reason? The app has blocked relevant hashtags with so-called shadowbans.

The “shadow banning” – a kind of censorship in social networks and forums – is used to block user content without the users noticing. A “shadow banning” ensures that the visibility of certain content is reduced or completely suppressed and uploads reach fewer or no people at all.

This is what happened recently with TikTok. The Chinese app operator suppressed hashtags with LGBTIQ* content – in at least eight languages and several regions, including Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Jordan. This is according to a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) published last week.

Homosexuality in the same category as drugs and terrorism

According to the report, TikTok has categorised hashtags on homosexuality in the same way as terrorist groups, illegal substances and swear words. Hashtags with the content “homosexual” in languages such as Russian (гей), Arabic (الجنس_مثلي), but also Bosnian (gej) and Estonian (gei) were affected. Terms such as #transgender or #transitioning in Arabic and #I am a gay or #I am a lesbian in Russian were also suppressed. The censorship affected not only citizens of a particular country, but all users who speak these languages, regardless of where in the world they live.

Other LGBTIQ*-related hashtags were completely blocked. For example, a video with the hashtag GayArab posted by ASPI could no longer be found. Instead, a #null page appeared.

Always the same excuses

In a statement to ASPI, TikTok referred – once again – to technical problems, laws and user behaviour. Visibility had been limited either because of local laws or because they were used in the search for pornographic content. At the very least, the company conceded that some composite sentences in Arabic had been mis-moderated – a translation error, the company said. To avoid similar problems in the future, the company is currently checking all terms that were moderated in error. In conclusion, TikTok said:

“In addition, we want to make it clear that TikTok strongly supports our LGBTQ creators around the world and that we are proud that LGBTQ content is one of the most popular categories on the platform, with billions of views”.

Advertising campaigns just cosmetics or actual support for minority rights?

Quite contradictory to the image built up in Western Europe and the USA as a fighter* for freedom of expression and minority rights, a publication of the British The Guardian in the same year proved that the history of the quite young app already shows some dark spots on the seemingly colourful advertising waistcoat.

According to leaked information from the company’s inner circle, TikTok had local moderation guidelines for various countries of the world that are anything but weak. The deletion regulations contained in these guidelines went far beyond the queer content actually prohibited by law in countries such as Turkey or Russia, making LGBTIQ* almost completely invisible to users there. The company reacted remorsefully also to this publication. It stated that the rules originated in the app’s early days, would be changed and referred to its proven queer-friendly commitment to the Western world.

Dangerous influence from China is possible

Because of its immense size and incredibly young user base, TikTok has the ability to manage and deploy the flow of information across geographic regions, themes and languages – both covertly and publicly. This makes TikTok a powerful political player with global reach.

Of course, this also applies to Google, Apple and, above all, Facebook, but TikTok does not operate as a purely private company that must justify itself in case of doubt before independent courts and committees of enquiry. Like all companies from the China, the Chinese Communist Party generally has the right to access not only all user data, but also specific rights of influence and censorship. Even though this is of course denied time and again, as in the case of the App Grindr, which was recently bought back into Western hands (we reported). If you do not believe this, you are welcome to try and find videos of the student protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989 on TikTok.

The US, which under the Trump administration is waging an economic war against China and has already brought smartphone giant Huawei to its knees along with Grindr, has recently succeeded in getting database specialist Oracle to take over the US business of TikTok operator Bytedance. To be continued …

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