“where are you? Are you ok , I loved the torture video,” reads one email, allegedly sent by Jeffrey Epstein in 2009. The reply, from a redacted address, states: “I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may.”
Her face hovering over a screenshot of the exchange, a TikTok creator claims the timing aligns with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s schedule, before speculating that the word “torture” could refer to documented abuses of Palestinian detainees. The video has drawn close to 700,000 views.
Another TikTok pushes back. Netanyahu met Chinese officials in Jerusalem — not Beijing — during that period, the second creator notes, his head resting on a pillow. The flight itinerary of the British politician Peter Mandelson flashes onto the screen, then cuts to a news clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham visiting Beijing. Graham once used a BlackBerry, that TikToker adds, pointing to the email’s “Sent from my BlackBerry” signature as potential evidence.
“Somebody is going to unearth something that’s going to crack it open,” he tells viewers.
In the comments, speculation metastasizes. “It was Bill Gates,” one user writes. “my instinct says musk,” adds another. A third replies: “No your prejustice does.”
No one was right; the address belonged to Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem.
The latest trove of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice includes over 3 million documents, images, and videos obtained from probes into sex trafficking allegations against the financier and convicted sex offender. Despite heavy redactions, the files appear to bear witness to a degenerate ruling class for whom the law was optional, either partaking in or willfully ignoring his sex trafficking enterprise.
TikTok creators have swarmed the files. Thousands of clips — amassing millions of views — attempt to decode cryptic emails, dig around FBI tips, and theorize on redacted names. In the comments, people swap file numbers and repeat the call to arms: “We are unredacting.” Creators span the political spectrum and descend from various niches: true-crime enthusiasts, news junkies, conspiracy theorists, mom bloggers, wellness gurus.
The #EpsteinFiles tsunami collapses the boundaries between digital vigilantism, conspiratorial thinking, and the warped incentives of the attention economy. Whether this visibility will translate into legal accountability remains unclear. Yet beneath the spectacle lies something harder to dismiss: a genuine groundswell of outrage at the abuses detailed in the files, held together by an overarching sense that traditional justice isn’t coming, even as Congress begins reviewing the unredacted files.
Why TikTok is flooded with Epstein Files clips
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