Following an executive order from President Donald Trump, U.S. TikTok users are reportedly seeing signs of increased censorship on the app, once seen as a free-speech haven. After going offline for a brief period due to new laws aimed at addressing national security concerns,

President Donald Trump's flurry of day-one actions included a reprieve for TikTok, the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an order on social media "censorship," a declaration of an energy emergency, and reversal of a Biden order on artificial intelligence.

A number of social-media posts claim that the Chinese-owned app is blocking content that is critical of the new president.

U.S. TikTok servers went down for roughly 12 hours over the weekend, starting on the night of January 18. American users are now reporting a spike in censorship of political commentary and criticism since the app has been back up and running in the States,

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and TikTok’s CEO Shou ZI Chew both attended the inauguration, alongside former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, the first tech boss to hitch his wagon to Trump.

Users say they are seeing fewer livestreams, and some activity is being removed or flagged at higher rates for violating community guidelines, including for behavior that was previously permitted.

As a potential TikTok ban looms, here's how President-elect Donald Trump views banning the app, and how his stance, has changed.

TikTok returned on Sunday for American users after going dark on Saturday night. President-elect Donald Trump says he intends to "save" the platform.

Senators Tom Cotton and Pete Ricketts said "there's no legal basis" for an extension to keep the social media platform online.

Chew is right that TikTok being banned is due to arbitrary censorship and that this law is an affront to the First Amendment rights of its 170 million users in the United States. But praising Trump’s action is more akin to performance art than traditional lobbying.

Content creator Jimmy Donaldson, known on the Internet as MrBeast, has made it clear he is interested in buying TikTok. Donaldson has the most subscribers of any user on YouTube— over 340 million—and boasts over 113 million TikTok followers.

President Donald Trump has ordered that no federal officer, employee or agent may unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.