The 'West Side Story' actress accuses the TikTok bosses of racism for allegedly removing all hashtags related to George Floyd and police brutality from the platform.
- May 30, 2020
AceShowbiz - Rachel Zegler, best known for her role as Maria in the upcoming remake of the movie musical "West Side Story", has quit TikTok after accusing bosses of "perpetuating oppression."
The 19-year-old singer and actress tweeted that she deleted her account on the video sharing platform after reportedly discovering the social media app has blocked "Black Lives Matter" and all hashtags relating to George Floyd.
The 46-year-old African American man was killed by Minneapolis cops while being arrested earlier this week, but the platform has allegedly removed all mention of him despite a public outcry against racially-driven police brutality.
In a series of tweets, Rachel urged TikTok officials to address the situation and fix it immediately, insisting, "The racism we've been calling out about your app, esp. recently, is extremely apparent now."
"If this obvious racism is not addressed properly out of genuine care for the situation (and not fear of losing business)," Rachel tweeted. "I will be deleting my profile, deleting the app altogether, + encouraging my followers to do the same. You have the opportunity to spread awareness right now, as an extremely popular social media app."
"But instead you perpetuate oppression by not promoting amazing black creators and now this? Pretty clear where your loyalty lies. Racism is a serious problem. It isn't new, and we're all in this together, as we are the ones responsible. Do better, @tiktok_us. Or we're gone."
In response to the actress' comments, a representative from the platform said, "We are aware of an issue that is impacting the hashtag view counts displayed at the upload stage."
"This appears to affect words at random, including terms like #cat and #hello. Our team is investigating and working quickly to address the issue."
Rachel later shared the tweet, simply adding, "que interesante" - "interesting" in Spanish.
Other users later confirmed that they could see videos under the hashtags.
