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Click here to see the summaryNEW YORK (AP) — TikTok has restricted one tool researchers use to analyze popular videos, a move that follows a barrage of criticism directed at the social media platform about content related to the Israel-Hamas war and a study that questioned whether the company was suppressing topics that don’t align with the interests of the Chinese government. TikTok’s Creative Center – which is available for anyone to use but is geared towards helping brands and advertisers see what’s trending on the app – no longer allows users to search for specific hashtags, including innocuous ones. The social media company, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, has also removed certain hashtags from the Creative Center that some online researchers had stored for analysis. “Unfortunately, some individuals and organizations have misused the Center’s search function to draw inaccurate conclusions, so we are changing some of the features to ensure it is used for its intended purpose,” TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek said in a prepared statement. The New York Times first reported on the changes, which came to light last week in an addendum to a study published in December by the Network Contagion Research Institute at Rutgers University. Haurek, the TikTok spokesperson, has disputed the report’s findings, saying it uses flawed methodology and fails to take into account that hashtags are created by users, not the company. — Saved 47% of original text.