West Side Story's Rachel Zegler quits TikTok for 'blocking BLM hashtags'

West Side Story actress Rachel Zegler has deleted her TikTok account in reaction to claims that the app has been blocking the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd hastags.

Social media users across the world been up in arms this week after George Floyd died following a police officer kneeling on his neck during his arrest.

Video footage of the incident left African-Americans outraged, with many taking to the streets in Minneapolis in protest, some of which turned violent and a police station was set on fire.

With many people using social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter to raise awareness and share their feelings with others, some were shocked to notice that the popular #blacklivesmatter and #georgefloyd hashtags could not be viewed on TikTok.

Rachel – who has been cast as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming adaptation of the iconic Broadway musical West Side Story – announced she was deleting her account in reaction to the news.

In a series of tweets, the 19-year-old star called out TikTok for what she believes is the app’s ‘extremely apparent’ racism, revealing she’s deleting her profile as well as ‘deleting the app altogether.’

However, the app’s official support page responded to a Twitter thread to explain that there had been a glitch on multiple hashtags, causing them to not be viewed.

The tweet read: ‘We are aware of an issue that is impacting the hashtag view counts displayed at the upload stage.

‘This appears to affect words at random, including terms like #cat and #hello. Our team is investigating and working quickly to address the issue.’

Several other stars have voiced their outrage at the death of George Floyd.

One Direction star Niall Horan hit back over President Donald Trump’s reaction to riots, while Kylie Jenner wrote an impassioned post claiming people should not have to live ‘in fear.’

Metro.co.uk has contacted TikTok for further comment.

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