TikTok apologizes to teen kicked off platform after criticizing China but can't shake censorship suspicions

Ever seen that one of Osama bin Laden singing Poker Face?No, really.

It'sa legitimate question forthe users of TikTok, the popular video-sharing app where an old clip has been uploaded of someonedressedconvincingly like the lateal-Qaeda leader performingthe Lady Gaga hit.

As bizarre as that clip may be, it's suddenly of interest because of the controversy surrounding another video posted by an American teenager one that she says was temporarily made unavailableby TikTok for political reasons.

The latest TikTok row serves as more proof the company cannotdispel the cloud of suspicion that follows it and other Chinese-owned technology marketed toward the West(think Huawei).

This week's controversy started afterFeroza Aziz, a 17-year-old Muslim girl from New Jersey, beganracking up millions of viewsfor a political statement disguised as a makeup tutorial.

In thevideo, first posted to TikTok, then shared on Twitter and beyond,Aziz says she's about to teach viewers "how to get long lashes."

Butnine seconds into the 40-second clip, whileholding a pink eyelash curler,she launches into a calm-voiced tirade about China's internment of the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority group whose plight was recently highlighted ina trove of secret government documents leaked to international media.

Azizcalls thefacilitieswhere hundreds of thousands of Uighurs are believed to have been detained and forced to undergo state-sanctioned indoctrination"concentration camps" and urgesusers to research the subject online.

"This is another Holocaust, yet no one is talking about it," she says.

Earlier this week, a consortium of journalists, including from CBC News,reported on the leaked documents, whichshedlight on the extent of Beijing's repression and worldwide tracking of Uighurs, wholive primarily inthe northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang.

Questions about Chinese law

There's been growing suspicion and accusations that TikTok's Beijing-based parent company,ByteDance, censors content on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, includingtopics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the recentunrest in Hong Kong.

Chinese law means citizens can be called upon at any moment to help with "national intelligence work," and observers in the West take that law to mean the government looms large over any private company based in China.

Aziz tweeted Wednesday evening that it wasn't the first time her attempts to speak out about what she describes as a Uighur genocidehad been silenced on TikTok, one of the world's fastest-growing apps.

For TikTok's critics, her experience appeared to be the platform's clearest case yet of Chinese censorship.

Moderation error

On Monday, Aziztweeted she had been temporarily blocked from posting on TikTok and later said the viral Uighur video had been taken down.

TikTok said Wednesday evening that the video was inadvertently removed because of a "human moderation error." The company saidit was reinstated less than an hour later, when another staffer caught the mistake.

"It's important to clarify that nothing in our community guidelines precludes content such as this video, and it should not have been removed," TikToksaid in a statement.

Aziz called the reappearance ofthe clip"very suspicious," but TikTok traced the source of the problem back to entirely different video Aziz had posted to a different account.

According to a timeline put out by the company, an old account belonging to Aziz had been suspended earlier this month because a video posted by that accountincluded an image of bin Ladenthat violated the company's rules about terrorism-related content.

Azizsaid that video a take on a meme about first crushes was just "dark humour."

TikToksaid Aziz was locked out of hernew account where the Uighur video was uploaded and viewed more than1.5 million timesbecause the device she used to set it up was the same one as she used for the older account. It was flagged Monday during a scheduled platform-wide sweep by the moderation team thatsaw more than 2,400 devices associated with banned accounts blocked.

The companyapologized to Aziz and said it would override her device ban.

On Twitter, Azizrejected TikTok's explanation: "Do I believe they took it away because of a unrelated satirical video that was deleted on a previous deleted account of mine? Right after I finished posting a 3 part video about the Uyghurs? No."

Other posts on TikTok have featured spoofs ofbin Laden, including thatPoker Facevideo, and remainup.

TikTokdenies state interference

Given the nature of the details highlighted in the leaked documents, it's reasonable to suspect China doesn't want the wider world to know about what is taking place inside the Uighur internmentcamps.

But does Beijing really care about what's on the teen-minded, outwardly fun-centric TikTok? The company said in an earlier statement it has never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and "would not do so if asked."

But it's a difficult time to make that case. Suspicion of Chinese technology runs to the top levels of Western governments.

American authorities have reportedly launched a national security review of ByteDance's 2017 takeover of social media service Musical.ly, which was absorbed into TikTok.

"TikTok is a potential counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore," two U.S. senators said.

Broader suspicions

And it's not just TikTok.

The Trump administration blacklisted Huawei on national security grounds, suspecting its equipment could be used for spying. Canada and the U.K. still aren't sure whether to allow the telecom supplier into their respective 5G wireless networks. Australia has already said it won't.

There's also the case of Grindr. The gay dating app's Chinese owners are looking for a new buyerafter they were suspected of mishandling sensitive user data includingusers' HIV status.

For TikTok, it's hard to see a way out of this broader trend of growing suspicion. The U.S. investigation might provide clarity as to whether some concerns are warranted.

The app's more than a billion active users,many of themteens (possibly younger),are reason enough to want to know whether the suspicion is warranted.

TheCBC News seriesChina's Power exploresChina's expanding influence around the world and how Canada and other countries are contending with the new superpower. Read the stories in the series: