Senators Probe TikTok For Censoring Girls’ Sports Advocates
Here’s a summary of the article titled “Exclusive: Senators Probe TikTok For Spreading Trans Propaganda While Censoring Girls’ Sports Advocates”:
Two female Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn and Joni Ernst, are questioning TikTok’s policies regarding content moderation. They accused the social media platform of censoring posts advocating for women’s sports while allowing “woke advertisements,” including those promoting transgender surgeries for minors, to proliferate.
The senators addressed their concerns to TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, highlighting a specific case where Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer, had her video removed for allegedly violating hate speech standards. The video, which featured her reaction to a non-binary activist discussing their identity, was reinstated only after media inquiries.
Additionally, Blackburn and Ernst referenced the ban of an advertisement from XX-XY Athletics, a brand supporting women’s sports, which TikTok labeled as hate speech despite its content celebrating female achievement.
The lawmakers asserted that the inconsistency in TikTok’s moderation policies not only suppresses conservative voices but also undermines support for young women in sports. They called for accountability regarding these practices, underscoring that a majority of Americans are against biological men participating in women’s sports, as reflected in recent polls.
The article concludes by inviting readers to view the full letter from the senators to TikTok.
For more details, you can view the full article [here](https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/10/exclusive-senators-probe-tiktok-for-spreading-trans-propaganda-while-censoring-girls-sports-advocates/).
A pair of female Republican senators are demanding documents from TikTok after the social media company censored champions of women’s sports and designated their posts “hate speech.”
On Wednesday, Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Joni Ernst of Iowa sent a letter to TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew outlining the company’s double standards related to the promotion of “woke advertisements” such as ads “promoting transgender surgery for minors.”
“The sponsored content shows a teenage girl who recently had a double mastectomy, exposing her surgery in graphic detail,” senators explained. “TikTok allowing this advertisement to run on minors’ feeds is the height of hypocrisy from a platform that suppresses conservative speech while profiting from leftist propaganda.”
Just two months earlier, a post from former college swimmer Riley Gaines was removed from TikTok because it allegedly violated “hate speech” requirements. The video published by Gaines featured the swimmer-turned-author-commentator silently eating cereal while watching an individual explain her transgender identity with a diversity word salad.
“The video was then reinstated on Sunday after Fox News Digital reached out for a comment,” the network reported. “TikTok did not respond to questions about why the video was originally removed.”
Sens. Blackburn and Ernst cited the episode of censorship in their Wednesday letter to TikTok and also asked the company to explain why a Denver-based athletics brand that supports women’s sports was banned from advertising this summer. Jennifer Sey, the founder of XX-XY Athletics, published the ad on X that supposedly resulted in her company losing its ability to advertise on TikTok.
“In your notification to the company informing them of the ban, TikTok labeled the content offensive and, later, hate speech,” senators wrote. “The advertisement deemed hateful by TikTok was simply a celebration of female achievement — using a real-life example — and encouraged young women to ‘be honest and be brave.’”
“Supporting young women should never be offensive, and it is telling that TikTok would consider a celebration of our girls in sports as worthy of being banned,” lawmakers added. “There is nothing controversial or hateful about the fact that men and women have biological differences, and any argument to the contrary is simply an attack on our nation’s women and girls.”
Americans, meanwhile, remain overwhelmingly opposed to biological men competing in women’s sports. According to a Gallup poll last year, 69 percent of the 1,011 adults surveyed said athletes should only be allowed to compete on teams that match their “birth gender,” up from 62 percent just two years prior. Even 64 percent of survey-takers who reported knowing a transgender person said sports leagues should be segregated based on sex.
Another survey from The Washington Post last year also found that more than 6 in 10 of the 1,338 U.S. adults interviewed believe biological men should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports.
Read the full letter from Blackburn and Ernst below:
10.9.24_Letter to TikTok Re… by The Federalist
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