This archive report was first published on 28 November 2019.
Published on November 28, 2019, a video by Feroza Aziz has garnered over 1.6 million views on TikTok, but its message was temporarily silenced.
Initially, the video discussed eyelash curling, but it quickly shifted to condemning China's mass detention of ethnic Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.
Aziz claimed she was blocked from posting on the app for a month after uploading the clip and later noted on Twitter that the video had been taken down.
TikTok, which has faced accusations of censoring content that Beijing dislikes, initially denied blocking Aziz, stating that her videos were still available.
However, the company later admitted to temporarily removing the video due to a 'human moderation error.'
The video was restored approximately 50 minutes later after a senior member of the moderation team identified the error and reinstated it immediately.
TikTok apologized for the mistake, stating that nothing in their Community Guidelines precludes content like Aziz's video, and it should not have been removed.
Human rights groups and experts estimate that over one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained in internment camps across Xinjiang.
China initially denied the existence of these camps but now describes them as vocational schools aimed at countering Islamist extremism and violence through education and job training.
