TikTok is currently suffered a widespread service outage in the US, causing disruptions to millions of users, just a few days after the company officially transferred control of its US operations to a group of majority-owned investors in the US.
The technical issues led many TikTok users to speculate about whether the app's new owners were intentionally suppressing videos about political topics, especially content related to recent federal immigration operations in Minnesota. TikTok has denied the allegations and attributed the problems to a power outage.
TikTok users began reporting on Sunday that they were having trouble uploading videos to the app and viewing content already posted on the platform. Others said that while they were able to upload videos, they were getting far fewer views and engagement than normal.
According to Downdetector, which tracks real-time service outages, a wave of users began reporting outages on TikTok in the US starting early yesterday morning. “Our data suggests that services have not yet been fully restored to all users,” reads an alert shared by Downdetector on Monday.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Law, said in a Bluesky post that he “recorded a video on TikTok about why DHS's arguments for the authority to enter homes without a warrant in immigration cases are nonsense. Nine hours later, TikTok still says my video is 'under review' and cannot be shared.”
The technical issues have also caught the attention of U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “I know it's hard to identify all the threats to democracy right now, but this is at the top of the list,” Murphy wrote in a Bluesky post. When asked for comment, Deni Kemper, a spokesperson for Murphy, told WIRED that his office “had nothing to share beyond the senator's tweet.”
In a message from a new A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the account to WIRED.
When asked about user claims that content on the platform was being censored, the spokesperson said it would be incorrect to describe the issue as anything other than a technical glitch that the company has publicly acknowledged on X.
The spokesperson added that new TikTok posts may temporarily take longer to be published and distributed due to the app's recommendation algorithm. TikTok says it is working with its data center partner to restore service as quickly as possible, but there is currently no estimate of when the app will be fully functional again.
Oracle, which owns 15 percent of TikTok's new U.S. entity, has hosted the app's U.S. user data since 2022. The company declined to comment on the outage. It is unclear whether this is related to a powerful winter storm that swept across large parts of the US and knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
TikTok completed the transfer of ownership of its US operations last week. On Thursday, the company announced it has formed TikTok USDS Joint Venture, a business entity aimed at bringing the app into compliance with a 2024 law requiring TikTok to divest its Chinese ownership. The law was upheld by the US Supreme Court, but its enforcement was repeatedly delayed by the Trump administration until last week.
In the announcement, TikTok said TikTok USDS Joint Venture would “retrain, test and update its content recommendation algorithm based on U.S. user data.” The news has left many US TikTok users concerned that the app's new owners could manipulate the algorithm to prioritize certain types of content over others.
