Hundreds of TikTokers have reported a widespread disappearance of their followers and people they follow.
The affected users on several Reddit threads on 11 March reported seeing their followers and following counts turn to zero for no apparent reason, some of which assumed they had been banned.
Is it a ban?
Many of the affected TikTokers have assumed that they have been banned as a result of the incident and rushed to the TikTok subreddit to check if they were the only ones affected.
At the time of reporting this story, TikTok hasn’t made any official statement concerning this, leading to more tension and suspense.
For many of the victims, this is a serious concern as they risk losing their streaks, some of which have 100s.
Streaks are badges that appear as a mark of recognition after exchanging messages for many days with a follower.
The obvious panic may be coming as a result of previous experiences with TikTok, where several issues have gone unresolved even after reporting to the admins.
For example just recently, users complained of the platform ignoring reports on racist content but randomly banning harmless accounts for recommending candy.
The platform has also embarked on a mass comment censorship that seems out of the ordinary, leading some users to think that the moderation is done by broken AI.
What’s happening?
At the moment, no one has any clue what could have caused the disappearance of people’s followers and those following them on TikTok.
Some users say it could be a glitch that has been resolved in some countries but not others.
Ultimately, TikTok may hold the answer to what’s going on but the company hasn’t released any statement yet. It is therefore unclear for how long the issue will last.