In the name of preventing “harassment,” TikTok removed a video I posted reporting on a trans-identifying man accused of sexual harassment. The video, which was removed Wednesday, shared how MSNBC praised Artemis Langford, the first transgender-identifying man to join a sorority, who has been accused by six of his sorority sisters of sexual harassment. According to TikTok, my video violated “Community Guidelines” because it constituted “Harassment and Bullying.”
“We welcome the respectful expression of different viewpoints but not toxicity or trolling,” TikTok wrote. “We do not allow language or behavior that harasses, humiliates, threatens, or doxxes anyone. This also includes responding to such acts with retaliatory harassment (but excludes non-harassing counter speech).”
My video, however, does not dox or harass Langford. It factually reports on the allegations made by the six sorority sisters in a public lawsuit. One of the allegations includes Langford “voyeuristically peeping” on the sisters and at times doing so with an “erection visible through his leggings.” Below you can watch the TikTok-censored video, which was also posted on Instagram.
I was clearly not harassing or threatening Langford, so perhaps TikTok removed my video because it was “toxic.” But of course, TikTok does not define what that means and, like most platforms, makes no transparent effort to justify its censorship calls.
What’s really toxic is a Big Tech company protecting an accused sexual harasser and going to bat for a corporate media company for celebrating him. In removing content that accurately reports on the sorority
