TikTok now censors the word 'Epstein' as new terms of service fuel major concern

TikTok has just released its new terms of service, and one detail is already fueling major concern online.

According to several reports online, the popular social media app is now censoring the word 'Epstein', in reference to the convicted child sex offender who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting sex-trafficking charges, per POLITICO.

When some users attempted to send direct messages containing the word 'Epstein', an automatic prompt could be seen declaring that the message may be in violation of TikTok's community guidelines. The messages were not sent, according to the prompt, 'to protect our community'.

"That’s INSANE," slammed one X user responding to the reports, while another urged: "Run from that app right now."

And a final person added: "That's bizarre."

The issue gained widespread attention online yesterday (26 January) and prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to take to X to announce an official inquiry into the matter.

"It’s time to investigate. I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content," he wrote.

A follow-up statement from the governor’s press account said Newsom was launching the review after his office 'received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump'.

It comes just a matter of days after TikTok finalised a sale that gave a consortium of predominantly American investors control of TikTok's business in the US.

Such a deal avoided a nationwide ban of the app over national security concerns tied to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Among the lead investors is tech firm Oracle, which is run by billionaire Larry Ellison, who is a close ally of Trump.

With new ownership comes a controversial change in the terms of service.

Before the recent update, TikTok didn't collect precise, GPS-derived location data of US users.

But the latest change means that, if you give the app permission to use your phone’s location services, then it may collect granular information about your exact whereabouts.

On top of that, TikTok is now tracking any interactions users have with artificial intelligence (AI).

This includes any prompts as well as the AI-generated outputs.

Many have been left concerned, with one TikTok user writing on X: "Lots of red flags in the terms of service and privacy policy."

Another said: "So is anyone else delete their tiktok bc of the new terms of service."

Since TikTok came under new ownership, the company has released a number of statements confirming it is dealing with technological issues.

After being approached for comment about the reports of the word 'Epstein' being blocked, TikTok pointed Tyla to the newsroom post published on the matter, as well as a couple of social media posts.

One X posted, shared yesterday, reads: "Since yesterday, we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data centre impacting TikTok and other apps we operate. We're working with our data centre partner to stabilise our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon."

A second, posted that evening, was captioned: "An update on our work to restore and stabilise TikTok."

It included a text post stating: "We're continuing to resolve a major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage at one of our US data centre partner sites. While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we've been working to resolve together with our data centre partner.

"What this means for your TikTok experience:

• You may notice multiple bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content.
• Creators may temporarily see '0' views or likes on videos, and your earnings may look like they're missing. This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe.

"Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to bring TikTok back to full capacity as soon as we can."

An official press release published today (27 January) echoes the latter statement.