
At the beginning of her video, 17-year-old Ferora Aziz is showing viewers on TikTok how to use an eyelash curler. Soon, she shifts subjects, instead criticizing China’s treatment of Muslims at detention centers.
““Then you’re gonna put [the curler] down and use your phone that you’re using right now to search up what’s happening in China,” Aziz said, according to Vox. “How they’re getting concentration camps, throwing innocent Muslims in there, separating their families from each other, kidnapping them, murdering them, raping them … this is another Holocaust.”
However, after the video racked up millions of views, Aziz was banned from TikTok and she accused the company, which is owned by the Chinese-based ByteDance, of discriminating against her.
“TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities,” the company said in a statement, as reported by CNN. TikTok said that Aziz’s account suspension was the result of a ban from one of Aziz’s previous accounts where she had a video featuring Osama bin Laden.
China denied that there were ethical violations in their treatment of Muslims.
“The measures that the Xinjiang government takes are about counter-terrorism and de-radicalization,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said, according to CNN.
This is not the first time that TikTok has come under fire for its relationship with China. Vox reports that in October, Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton co-authored a letter asking the U.S. intelligence community to assess any national security concerns connected to TikTok.
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