Hacks star Megan Stalter deletes TikTok after claiming platform is restricting ICE content

Hacks star Megan Stalter has deleted her Tiktok account after claiming that the app was censoring her posts criticising the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The actor and comedian wrote in a post on Instagram she would be downloading her videos and leaving because the app is under “new ownership and we are being completely censored and monitored”.

“I’m unable to upload anything about ICE even after I tried to trick the page by making it look like a comedy video. Let’s delete the app, love you,” she wrote.

In a statement posted to its X account on Monday, the Tiktok USDS Joint Venture said: “Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data centre impacting TikTok and other apps we operate. We're working with our data center partner to stabilise our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”

On Wednesday, they posted an update on the outage and said they were “continuing to resolve a major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage”.

“While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we've been working to resolve together with our data centre partner,” TikTok wrote, adding that users might encounter “multiple bugs, slower load times, or timed-out requests, including when posting new content”.

“Creators may temporarily see ‘0’ views or likes on videos, and your earnings may look like they're missing. This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe,” they added.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Stalter and TikTok for comment.

Last week, TikTok owner Bytedance finalised a majority American-owned joint deal to keep operating in the US, which allows it to “operate under defined safeguards that protect national security”.

The deal ended years of uncertainty about the future of the social media platform in the country, with US officials previously claiming that the algorithm was vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, although no evidence had been presented to show that China had attempted to do so.

Protests against ICE have spread all over the country after federal immigration agents shot two people dead in Minneapolis this month. On 7 January, officers shot and killed Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, as she was behind the wheel of her car. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, was killed on 24 January after a confrontation between agents and civilians escalated.

In both cases, the Donald Trump administration claimed that the agents acted in self-defence, which has been disputed by protestors citing video footage of the incidents.

Stalter is not the only one claiming that her videos on ICE were being censored. Musician Billie Eilish reposted a video on her Instagram that had originally been posted on TikTok by her brother and collaborator Finneas, and wrote: “TikTok is silencing people btw.”

“You’ve spent 30 years straight telling us that children have to die so that we’re allowed to legally carry weapons everywhere in the United States,” Finneas said in the video, which he said reached 0 viewers.

At the time of writing, Finneas’s video had 1.4 million views, but comments mention that the video is “glitching”.