California Governor Gavin Newsom said that he is ordering a review of whether TikTok under its new owners has been suppressing content critical of Donald Trump.
Newsom wrote on X on Monday, “It’s time to investigate. I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.”
His spokesman confirmed the review. His press office said that following “TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump.”
A TikTok spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
Over the weekend, users of TikTok complained that the platform suppressed videos about the shooting of Alex Pretti by a federal agent in Minneapolis. TikTok’s new U.S. owners said a powr outage occurred at one of its U.S. data center sites.
Last week, the social media giant announced a joint venture to establish an American entity. The deal came after Congress passed a law requiring China’s ByteDance to divest ownership of TikTok or face a ban on U.S. app stores.
The three managing investors in the JV include Silver Lake, Oracle and MGX, each holding 15%, along with Dell Family Office, the investment firm of Michael Dell, founder, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies; Vastmere Strategic Investments, an affiliate of Susquehanna International Group; Alpha Wave Partners; Revolution; Merritt Way, controlled and managed by partners of Dragoneer; Via Nova, an affiliate of General Atlantic; Virgo LI Inc., investment arm of a foundation established by Yuri and Julia Milner in support of science; and NJJ Capital, the family office of Xavier Niel, a French entrepreneur and pioneer in telecommunications. ByteDance retains 19.9% of the joint venture.
Republicans for years have claimed that social media giants have suppressed conservative views, suspicious of the Democratic leanings of some of the Silicon Valley tech titans and the workforce. But Oracle’s Larry Ellison isa longtime Trump supporter, while X’s owner is Elon Musk, who had a role in the administration last year.
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