TikTok Data Center Outage Triggers Trust Crisis for New US Owners
TikTok is currently is experiencing a widespread service outage in the US, causing disruptions for millions of users just days after the company officially handed over control of its US business to a group of users majority-US investors.
The technical problems led many TikTok users to speculate whether the new owners of the app deliberately suppressed videos on political topics, especially content related to recent federal immigration operations in Minnesota. TikTok has denied the allegations, attributing the problems to a power outage.
TikTok users began reporting on Sunday that they were having problems uploading videos to the app and viewing content that had already been posted on the platform. Others said that although they were able to upload videos, they were getting far fewer views and engagement than usual.
According to Downdetector. “Our data suggests that services have not yet been fully restored for all users,” reads an alert Downdetector shared on Monday.
Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Law, said in a Bluesky pole that he had “recorded a video on TikTok about why DHS's arguments for the power to enter homes without judicial warrants in immigration cases are bunk. Nine hours later, TikTok still says my video is 'under review' and cannot be shared.”
The technical glitches have also attracted the attention of US Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. “I know it's hard to keep track of all the threats to democracy right now, but this is at the top of the list,” Murphy wrote in a Blue sky post. When reached for comment, Deni Kemper, a spokesman for Murphy, told WIRED that his office had “nothing to share beyond the senator's tweet.”
In a post from a new X account created by the app's US-controlled entity, TikTok said the service outage was caused by “a power outage in a US data center.” A TikTok spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the account to WIRED.
When asked about user claims that content was censored on the platform, the spokesperson said it would be inaccurate to describe the issue as anything other than a technical problem that the company has publicly confirmed on X.
The spokesperson added that new TikTok posts may temporarily take longer to publish and circulate 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 for when the app will be fully functional again.
Oracle, which owns 15 percent of TikTok's new US entity, has hosted the app's US user data since 2022. The company declined to comment on the outage. It is unclear whether it can be related to a powerful winter storm sweeping over large parts of the US, which has knocked out electricity for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
TikTok completed the transfer of ownership of its US operations last week. Thursday is business announced that the TikTok has established USDS Joint Venture, a corporate entity intended to bring the app into compliance with a 2024 law that requires TikTok to divest itself of its Chinese ownership. The law was upheld by the US Supreme Court, but its enforcement was postponed again and again by the Trump administration until last week.
In the announcement, TikTok said that the TikTok USDS Joint Venture will “retrain, test and update the content recommendation algorithm on the US user data.” The news has many American TikTok users worried that the app's new owners could manipulate the algorithm to prioritize certain types of content over others.
