TikTok USA Faces Major Issues

TikTok faced significant challenges during its first weekend after the sale of its US division. Reports from DownDetector indicated a surge in issues early Sunday morning, with users continuing to experience problems even after the initial spike.

As of now, TikTok has not provided any updates or confirmations regarding these issues, leaving the full scope of the problems unclear. Many users in the US have struggled to upload videos, with submissions remaining “under review” for extended periods. For instance, a video uploaded from a US account has been pending for nearly 12 hours, while a video from the UK was published but is only accessible to editors outside the US. Accounts for major pages are similarly affected, showing new uploads only to users located outside the US, while US viewers can only see content uploaded prior to Sunday morning.

Users have reported a range of issues, including trouble logging in, the inability to upload or publish videos, a For You Page that lacks personalization, difficulties loading comments, and various errors with other features, including the CapCut video editor.

The timing of these issues has led some to speculate about a connection between TikTok’s problems, its new ownership, and recent anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, particularly following the tragic death of local resident Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents. The combination of publishing errors and a For You Page filled with generic content has raised concerns, especially when videos addressing ICE issues fail to publish. However, it seems the problems are more widespread than initially thought.

Last week, TikTok’s US operations transitioned to an investment consortium that includes Oracle, which has alleviated fears of a US ban. This change has already resulted in new terms of service for US users, highlighting the collection of precise location data and details regarding user interactions with AI. The new owners are also set to take charge of US content moderation, raising concerns about potential censorship even before these recent issues arose, and they plan to retrain the app’s algorithm using US data.

We reached out to TikTok for a statement regarding the outage but have not received a response as of yet.