A museum celebrating the life and work of Charles Dickens has been "blocked" on TikTok. The Charles Dickens Museum in Holborn, London, has fallen foul of the video-sharing site's strict community guidelines due to the novelist's surname which contains a "rude word".
The museum, which is based in the writer's former home at 48 Doughty Street where he worked on Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers, recently joined TikTok in an attempt to expand its social media portfolio but their new venture has resulted in disappointment with attempts to search for their account on the site returning no results. Instead those who attempt to search for the museum's account are shown a warning message from TikTok which reads: “This phrase may be associated with behaviour or content that violates our guidelines". It adds that "promoting a safe and positive experience is TikTok’s top priority.”
With their name unsearchable the museum only has a handful of followers on the video-sharing site compared to their Twitter and Instagram accounts, which boast more than 17,000 and 13,000 followers respectively. The few TikTok videos that the account has posted are, of course, all totally innocent with museum staff showing viewers around parts of Dickens' former home.
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The museum – which opened nearly 100 years ago – has now launched a campaign to make their account visible to fans again, using the Twitter hashtag #freedickens. In a statement posted on Twitter it said that the writer's surname was "a name, not slang", adding: "We’ve launched a TikTok, but Dickens is blocked! Charles Dickens is unsearchable because he has a rude word in his name.
“We’ll always support social media platforms having safeguards in place to protect users, but Dickens is a name, not slang, and the Charles Dickens Museum should be able to share great TikTok videos. #FreeDickens." The statement went on: "It’s like banning Shakespeare because his name advocates the use of medieval weapons, or Virginia Woolf for keeping wild animals as pets.”
The museum's Twitter followers lent their support to the campaign but also saw the funny side of the whole affair."Dear God. Presumably they ban thrice Mayors of London too? And don’t even mention the cat," said one, while another quipped: "It's the people of Scunthorpe I feel sorry for". Others offered potential solutions with one user saying: "Monty Python would probably suggest you simply use 'Darles Chickens'," while another suggested a change of location, adding: "Relocate to Penistone?"
