This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on February 24, 2025 - March 2, 2025

After the dust settled on the TikTok ban fiasco in the US, I opened the app to check out a barrage of videos a friend had sent me in direct messages — just the usual routine. Everything seemed normal, nothing was really out of place since the Americans came back online. But I noticed that some notifications were a little cryptic, telling me to open the app to see the texts I had been sent.

I received a funny video along with my friend’s succinct commentary on it — “shut the (expletive) up”. However, I also got a warning telling me that the message was hidden due to the sensitive content it contained, and that if I was not comfortable with the content, I could report or block this user immediately. I did not do that, of course, but this extra layer of precaution felt a little unnecessary.

Granted, the comment was a little vulgar. But it is considered a normal expression in banter between close friends. To me, it did not warrant such concern.

I did not think much of it at first and assumed it was a pilot project of TikTok. But as days went on, I kept seeing the same notification pop up.

This time, it was not just over profanities, but my friend’s reaction to how the audio used in a TikTok video was not exactly up her alley. “The audio made me mad” was all she said, and somehow it got flagged as something dangerous.

This made me take a step back and think: Why would something like this be censored? Surely, if it were obscene language or insults, it would have made perfect sense. In fact, most of the messages that were hidden to me implied some sort of jab against another person. But someone getting mad at something innocuous did not really need to be hidden.

It felt like someone was throwing darts at random online phrases and censoring whatever they hit, without even considering the bigger picture or selecting words that would be more practical to focus on. This begged the question: What exactly is TikTok trying to protect and, more importantly, what is it trying to police?

Maybe the programming is still in its testing phase, or maybe it is related to TikTok’s bite-sized implementation of artificial intelligence (AI), but the censorship felt all over the place and it was difficult to decipher what the real objective was.

What’s more is that terms such as “kys”, which is a popular abbreviation for “kill yourself”, can be sent without any restrictions. But sending “kms”, which stands for “kill myself”, or any sentence that implies one wants to end one’s life, would not be delivered at all.

I found this a little confusing. After all, why would one term be restricted but not the other? While the censoring of phrases on ending one’s life has been around for quite a while, I wondered why a hateful comment such as “kys” was allowed to be sent but not one that is potentially a cry for help.

It was only recently that there would be a note under “kms” providing information for help. Whereas previously, there would be a note letting the user know that the message would remain unsent due to violation of community guidelines.

Another thing that was interesting was that the safe mode was mysteriously turned on for me, an iPhone user, while my friend, a Samsung user, did not notice any changes at all.

I fear it is not a coincidence that this new system was implemented right after TikTok’s “miraculous” return thanks to President Donald Trump, as the app put it straightly, right before pushing for the US to have a 50% stake in TikTok.

Prior to the TikTok ban in the US, there were discussions on how the functions on the social media platform had made dissemination of information difficult or for a narrative to be controlled, to the extent that such censoring of text messages could lead to even more restrictions on the platform in the future.

I cannot say definitively which direction TikTok is heading in, but for now, I will keep the safe mode on my phone turned off. That’s for sure.

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