Reform's immigration TikTok reinstated after being deleted 'in error'

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In the video posted on TikTok, Reform's Zia Yusuf said that Britain was being ‘overwhelmed’ by migration and that successive governments had failed to tackle the issue.

“We will abolish indefinite leave to remain, and those who do not speak English, those who do not contribute economically, and those who commit crime will no longer be welcome in our country,” Mr Yusuf says in the clip.

It was pulled by TikTok and Reform has accused the platform of doing the ‘dirty work’ of the Labour Party by taking it down.

Mr Yusuf said: “TikTok has now removed my video outlining the key policies I would implement as Home Secretary, claiming it is “Hate Speech and Hateful Behaviour.” 

“They warned me that any further "violations" will result in a strike, potentially leading to being de-platformed altogether.

“This is all the more staggering given TikTok happily hosts hundreds of videos of people calling for the assassination of Nigel Farage.

“My TikTok videos had received 18 million views over the previous 28 days.

“This is a chilling attempt to silence one of the biggest and fastest-growing UK political accounts on the platform.

“TikTok is engaging in direct political interference in the midst of the most pivotal elections in our country’s history.

“All under the auspice of the “Online Safety Act” that the Tories and Labour claimed to be about protecting children.

“It is, and always will be about silencing voices the open-borders political establishment don’t like.”

The social media platform claimed Mr Yusuf's video contained "hate speech" or "hateful behaviour".

Reform leader Nigel Farage said removing the video amounted to “unacceptable political interference from a big tech company.”

He posted online: "This video from Zia Yusuf on immigration has been removed by TikTok for 'Hate Speech'.

"This is unacceptable political interference from a big tech company. Does TikTok believe in free speech or not?"

But TikTok later reinstated the clip, saying that a review found it had been removed or restricted in error, and the party's account remains available on the platform.

A Department for Science, Innovation and Technology spokesman said: "The decision to remove content is made by the platforms independently.

"The Online Safety Act is designed to keep children safe online – protecting them from harmful content – and not to censor political debate. It doesn't enable platforms to arbitrarily remove content, and tech firms have a duty to uphold freedom of expression."

TikTok’s hate speech policy states: “Hate speech and hateful behaviour has no place on TikTok. We do not allow hate speech and hateful ideologies, and will not recommend content that contains negative stereotypes about a person or group with a protected attribute. We use a combination of technology and human moderators to detect and remove accounts and content that break our rules.

“Hate speech can be conveyed through any form of expression, including images, text, audio, cartoons, memes, objects, gestures, and symbols, some of which won’t always be obvious.”