Sanusi's TikTok up again as new account hits over 160,000 followers in less than 24 hours

A new TikTok account of Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor saw its followers balloon to more than 160,000 in less than 24 hours, a sign of the PAS politician's popularity in the wake of attacks against him by Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Umno leaders.

A check on the app found that the new account under the username @sanusimdnor74 garnered over 164,000 followers and close to 100,000 likes on the eight video clips posted so far.

The new account was created to replace his original account under the username @sanusimdnor which appeared to have been blocked, prompting Sanusi to point the finger at the government, which he said was trying to silence him ahead of the state elections campaign.

"If you're truly brave, return my TikTok account," the outspoken MB said on Saturday.

It is understood that the original TikTok account has been restored and is accessible again this morning.

"The new account was created yesterday when the original one was blocked.

"But the original one is accessible again this morning. They're afraid," Sanusi's press secretary Muhamad Mat Yakim told MalaysiaNow.

The government has denied that it blocked Sanusi's TikTok account, saying that it has no authority to ban any user account in the country as the social media platform is owned by the Chinese technology firm, Bytedance Ltd.

Soon after the PH-BN coalition formed the government last year, however, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil held a meeting with TikTok, as the application was said to have benefited Perikatan Nasional during the 15th general election campaign.

In recent days, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has also been writing to social media companies seeking cooperation to remove postings by government critics.

At least two such requests to Twitter have been turned down by the platform in the past two weeks.

Twitter said it cannot fulfil such requests by the government and state agencies as the platform has a policy of protecting free speech.