TikTok deletes videos related to Uyghur human rights violations
Uyghurs living abroad report posts being taken down by censors.
Nefise Oguz, a Uyghur student at Istanbul University, uploaded a video to TikTok of a brief debate she had with Doğu Perinçek, leader of Turkey’s nationalist Patriotic Party, about the Uyghur genocide and China’s oppressive policies in Xinjiang.
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She posted it on the popular short-video platform on the evening of Oct. 24 after sharing it on Facebook and other social media sites — only to discover it had been deleted from TikTok the next morning.
Tik Tok said it removed the video because it violated its community guidelines. News of the incident spread on social media, generating strong opposition from Uyghurs.
Other Uyghurs living abroad say TikTok is deleting videos about human rights violations in Xinjiang, the far-western region of China where 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs live.
But TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, have said they have no relationship with the Chinese government, which censors such posts within its borders.
RFA emailed TikTok for comment about this specific case, but did not receive a response.
“The ethnic genocide and oppression of the Uyghurs by the Chinese government is a fact,” Oguz told Radio Free Asia. “I uploaded a video to TikTok, but it was removed because it made them uncomfortable.”
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