Popular TikTok creator Nicole Parish, known on the platform as soundoftheforest, has been banned. The exact reason why TikTok banned Parish is unknown at the time of this writing, but the running theory is that her account was frozen too many times for videos using the words like "autism" and "autistic." Even though TikTok reportedly restored those videos after it was deemed that they did not actually violate its community guidelines, it seems that a ban occurs when an account accrues too many frozen videos.
Parish is an autistic TikTok creator who mainly uploaded videos about insects and her experience as an autistic person. She developed a sizable following on TikTok, becoming one of the more popular TikTok creators on the platform with nearly 2 million followers at the time her account was banned. Unfortunately, TikTok reportedly banned Parish's account for "numerous Community Guideline violations," believed to be the aforementioned frozen-but-restored videos where she discussed autism.
TikTok bans tend to stick, with it sometimes being next to impossible for creators to get their accounts restored, even if the ban is injust, which appears to be the case with the soundoftheforest TikTok ban. A Change.org petition has been started asking that TikTok restore Parish's account, and it's generating a lot of signatures at a fast rate. A video uploaded on an alternate account called nicoleparishart has explained the situation further, directing users to the Change.org petition and likely serving as a big reason why it's generating so many signatures so fast.
Over 6,000 people have signed the soundoftheforest petition at the time of this writing, with new signatures added every second. It's clear by the sheer number of signatures that the petition is getting that many TikTok users don't agree with the platform's decision to ban Parish, especially since her content was hardly anything that would go against the platform's community guidelines. It's unclear if TikTok plans on restoring her account, but one has to imagine that the petition could get some attention if it gets enough signatures.
The unfortunate thing is that TikTok petitions have generally been ignored in the past, and it's hard to say if this one will be any different. It's possible that TikTok will acknowledge the petition and restore Parish's soundoftheforest TikTok account, but it's also possible that the company will stick to its guns and will ultimately refuse to give her account back. Fans of soundoftheforest will have to wait and see what happens.