TikTok has been accused of censorship after it temporarily took down a video of The Telegraph journalists discussing the risks of COVID-19 vaccines. A clip of the interview uploaded by social media influencer Adam Brooks was taken down for a few hours before it was reinstated.
The discussion was between science editor Sarah Knapton and columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson. Knapton said that she “wouldn’t necessarily go for” the vaccine if she was in her twenties.
“There clearly is some sort of – definitely an observational link between an increase in heart problems after, particularly the mRNA jabs, and we don’t know what the long term outcome of that will be,” she said.
The UK government acknowledges the risk: “Many studies have now shown that there is an increased risk of myocarditis (heart inflammation) following vaccination with an mRNA vaccine, especially in young men under the age of 40.”
“We are not anti-vaxxers – I shouldn’t even have to say that,” Pearson said. “I do think that if authoritative and respectable media outlets like The Telegraph ignore this topic, it just fuels the crazy conspiracy theories.
“It’s our responsibility to examine the data, to acknowledge that the data is still very raw – so we can’t draw concrete conclusions yet, as Sarah said – but we can indicate that in certain age groups of the Covid vaccines that the risk may outweigh the benefits. And that’s a perfectly legitimate point of view.
“We know that the Government has just stopped offering the Covid vaccine to healthy under-50s, so that’s what we were basing it on. We had a really interesting, thoughtful discussion. Sarah was brilliant of course, treading a tricky line during the pandemic. And I don’t think anyone listening to that interview would take anything amiss.”
She added that she and Halligan were “absolutely incredulous when I heard that part of the interview which had been shared on TikTok had violated their community guidelines… I don’t understand where this censorship is coming from.”
Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: “My general view is that TikTok should be banned full stop, because they are data harvesting for the Chinese government. People should be warned they are data harvesters for a brutal regime.
“It’s an absurdity to remove people because you disagree with their argument. It’s absurd to remove content simply on the basis you think the argument is not mainstream. Let people be the judge of that. People should be advised not to use TikTok.”
