Christian TikTok videos are censored and deleted in the US, creators say

Christian content is often censored and removed from TikTok, according to several creators on the platform. 

The China-based social media app hosts short, snippy videos ranging from inspirational mini-speeches to musical and dance performances and is popular with teenagers and young adults. The platform reports over 800 million active users, with 30 million active users in the U.S.

Researchers have grown concerned over the app’s reach and the possibility of it bringing Chinese-style censorship to mainstream U.S. audiences. In September, the app purportedly removed content posted by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. More recently, pro-life accounts on the app were disabled and later reinstated. 

Despite these accusations, the platform seldom provides public comment about the videos it removes or its claimed independence from censors in Beijing. 

A screenshot of the alert Abby received, courtesy of Abby.

The censorship has extended past the political realm and into religion, according to several Christian TikTokers. 

Abby, an 18-year-old creator from Indiana, joined the platform last summer, after TikTok merged with the Shanghai-based app Musical.ly, bringing TikTok to the U.S. market.

Skeptical of the new trend and off-put by the reputation of Musical.ly, which was popular among much younger kids, Abby, who asked to be identified by her first name only due to privacy concerns, was reluctant to join the bandwagon. But, boredom and her younger cousin’s pestering eventually won out and she made an account reflecting her low levels of enthusiasm, “Abby_Was_Bored.” 

“I grew up in a family where we love Jesus. We just love the Bible. I know the subject, so I made TikTok trends around the Bible,” she said. 

Her new brand involved taking popular TikTok memes and tags and spinning them into Christian comedy. One video spun off of the red dot trend that went viral toward the end of 2019. The trend was based in an overpopulation-induced dystopia in which everyone received a dot on their hand: green means you live, and red means you die. 

“A made a spinoff where I had a red dot and Jesus took it away from me,” Abby said. 

A month after she launched her account, one of her videos went viral with 1 million views. 

Followers started pouring in and strangers were asking her questions about God and the Bible, she said. 

At the end of April, less than a year since she launched her account, she was seeing 500 new followers a day on average. “I was rising pretty quickly,” she said. “As quarantine hit, we did a Zoom call with all of our family. We bought a cake. My grandma made a facebook post about it,” she said. 

Then things started to take a turn. 

Two weeks ago, on a livestream Bible study with her sister, the screen went black in the middle of a Q&A session. “A little box popped up that said, ‘You have been permanently banned,’” Abby said. “And it sucked.” 

TikTok banned Abby from live-streaming once before, citing concerns over her age (streamers have to be at least 18) but that issue was quickly rectified, according to Abby. This was a completely different ordeal. Abby’s account has been taken down. All of her videos are gone and she is unable to like or comment on content posted by others. 

When Religion Unplugged asked about this issue, TikTok declined to provide a statement.

“They never gave us an excuse, just that I ‘violated multiple community guidelines,’ but they never said what those were, and I checked the guidelines, we didn’t violate any of them. We weren’t hostile.” Abby said. “They never sent me an email or explained or anything. I contested it, but it's been radio-silence. Everything is gone.” 

Jay’Vion Lawrence Austin, a Christian rapper and singer on the platform, has encountered similar issues. 

Austin joined the app in September 2019, and also had a quick rise to popularity. Toward the end of March, Austin reached 100,000 followers. Then his videos started being deleted from his account. 

“I have had seven videos deleted for no real reason,” Austin said. The first video removed was one discussing the rise of Christian content on the platform. He has had several other worship rap and song videos removed since. “Sometimes TikTok will send a notification that my video violates guidelines, even though it never does. Other times it will literally just disappear from my page.” 

Most recently, a video condemning racism from a Christian perspective, saying that God created all people equal, was removed. Austin re-uploaded the video three times, and each time it was removed by TikTok. 

A screenshot of Austin’s support conversation with TIkTok, courtesy of Austin.

After hosting virtual Bible studies, Austin was also banned from live streaming. TikTok cited concerns over his age and asked him to verify his ID. He complied and was reinstated. On a later livestream, he received the same notification about his age and went through the verification process again. On his fourth livestream, he was permanently banned for being underage. Austin is 18. 

Unlike Abby, the rest of his account remains active. 

Austin has reached out to TikTok about the error four times and has not heard back. 

In addition to disabled accounts, removed videos, and barred live streams, Christian creators also cite concerns over a more subtle form of censorship known as shadowbanning. 

Shadowbanned accounts are nearly invisible online and generally do not show up in feeds or curated “for you” pages. 

“I am shadowbanned all of the time.” Austin said. “My videos normally get between 10,000- 2 million views. When I’m shadowbanned, that drops to between 100-200.”

Naveah Greenslate, who posts Christian comedy and worship videos, said TikTok shadowbanned her account after they disabled her live-streaming permissions in the middle of a Bible study. “You know you are shadowbanned when you get in a riff with the platform and then your views randomly drop from 2,000 to 20,” Greenslate said. 

Alongside the bigger names, smaller accounts have similar grievances. 

Brooklyn-Grace Peck, a creator with slightly over 4,000 followers, posted a video on April 17 with the text “a person who lost their life to save others” followed by a series of photos of Jesus on the cross. 

The video was taken down for violating community guidelines and reinstated three days later. 

Tesany Torres, who has 5,000 followers on the platform, had a prayer video posted to her account in collaboration with one of her friends in mid-March. 

“My friend asked me if I deleted it, and I had no idea what she was talking about,” Torres said. “I got on and the video had disappeared. They said it violated guidelines, but it didn’t. It was just a normal prayer, asking that people would know how much God loves them.” 

Torres reached out to TikTok about the video and has not heard back, she said. 

Liza Vandenboom is a student at The King’s College, an intern at Religion Unplugged, and a religion columnist for the Empire State Tribune.