In the name of preventing “harassment,” TikTok removed a video I posted reporting on a trans-identifying man accused of sexual harassment. The video, which was removed Wednesday, shared how MSNBC praised Artemis Langford, the first transgender-identifying man to join a sorority, who has been accused by six of his sorority sisters of sexual harassment. According to TikTok, my video violated “Community Guidelines” because it constituted “Harassment and Bullying.”
“We welcome the respectful expression of different viewpoints but not toxicity or trolling,” TikTok wrote. “We do not allow language or behavior that harasses, humiliates, threatens, or doxxes anyone. This also includes responding to such acts with retaliatory harassment (but excludes non-harassing counter speech).”
My video, however, does not dox or harass Langford. It factually reports on the allegations made by the six sorority sisters in a public lawsuit. One of the allegations includes Langford “voyeuristically peeping” on the sisters and at times doing so with an “erection visible through his leggings.” Below you can watch the TikTok-censored video, which was also posted on Instagram.
I was clearly not harassing or threatening Langford, so perhaps TikTok removed my video because it was “toxic.” But of course, TikTok does not define what that means and, like most platforms, makes no transparent effort to justify its censorship calls.
What’s really toxic is a Big Tech company protecting an accused sexual harasser and going to bat for a corporate media company for celebrating him. In removing content that accurately reports on the sorority sisters’ accusations, TikTok is actively silencing the stories of alleged victims of sexual harassment.
It’s Not Just TikTok
TikTok is not uniquely bad, either. The removal of my TikTok video is the second bout of censorship I’ve experienced in a little over a week, with the first happening on Instagram. Last Tuesday, Instagram slapped a “false” label and “fact-check” on a reel I made exposing the 14 American cities that have a “target” of banning meat, dairy, and private vehicle ownership by the year 2030.
The reality is that all major social media companies engage in censorship, and they are all in coordination with one another and globalist organizations, like the United Nations. The difference between Chinese-owned TikTok and American-owned platforms like Instagram and YouTube is that the American companies work more directly alongside the Biden administration and various U.S. federal agencies, which then act just as much as an enemy of the American people as the Chinese Communist Party.
Missouri v. Biden revealed that — no joke — the Biden administration had its own personal “Twitter’s Partner Support Portal” in order to “expedite” censorship directives from the White House. A judge found the Biden administration guilty of criminally infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights. Instead of firing the guilty parties responsible for the brazen censorship, however, the Biden administration has filed an appeal so it can continue acting as if it is the Ministry of Truth.
This unholy alliance between government entities and Big Tech giants is why social media companies will never fully be held accountable for the censorship that I and so many others have experienced. TikTok and Instagram shouldn’t be able to remove content they don’t like while also enjoying the privileges afforded to them under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which treats Big Tech companies as platforms even though they clearly act like publishers. No one in the federal government is going to remove those privileges, though, because the government benefits from its crony partnership with the tech oligarchs, which allows it to silence ideological and political opponents.
We Can’t Isolate Ourselves to the Outskirts of the Internet
It’s worth noting I do not have a massive following on Instagram or TikTok. On Instagram, I have fewer than 10,000 followers, and on TikTok, I have fewer than 600. Despite not having a major platform or verified accounts, I was targeted and punished by the tech giants, demonstrating how wide-reaching and sophisticated the Censorship Complex has become. Any voice, big or small, that undermines the authority, aims, or values of either leftist orthodoxy or federal and global government entities can expect to be silenced by the tech oligarchy.
When faced with this reality, many conservatives throw in the towel and quit the major platforms altogether. The problem is that Instagram is the most popular “news source” for younger people, followed by TikTok and YouTube. Young people, particularly teens, also spend exorbitant amounts of time on TikTok and Instagram, digesting increasingly popular short-form video content. To learn about a topic, young people prefer to watch a one-minute TikTok or reel rather than read a six-minute article.
There is a need for a freedom-loving app like Rumble to create a short-form content competitor to Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. But until that happens, free thinkers cannot abandon the major platforms and thus the struggle to change the hearts and minds of the future generations who will one day run America.
That’s in part because tech censorship is just a prequel to total unpersoning, something we must fight, not aid. Entities like the World Economic Forum and United Nations are pushing for digital IDs, and the Biden administration is trying to implement a Central Bank Digital Currency. These developments will inevitably generate a Chinese-style social credit system, which will punish dissenters in more ways than internet censorship.
Self-deplatforming and alienation are what the tech giants and their stakeholder partners want. Don’t make their jobs easier. If we give up on disseminating information, we give up on the fight to preserve freedom, truth, and, in the case of the trans-identifying sorority man, sanity in the digital and physical world.
