TikTok went down for hundreds of thousands of users this weekend, just days after the app’s US operations transferred to new American owners. While the company attributes the problems to a data center power outage, the timing has sparked speculation about potential censorship — particularly as social media plays a crucial role in documenting ongoing ICE activity in Minneapolis.
What Happened
Starting around 3:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, TikTok users flooded Downdetector with complaints. The outage tracker logged 36,000 reports within just 15 minutes, eventually accumulating over 615,000 reports through the morning.
Users reported a range of issues:
- Unable to sign in to the app
- For You Page showing old or repeating content
- New videos failing to upload
- Content stuck in review mode for hours
- Broken engagement metrics — videos showing zero views but accumulating likes
“Since yesterday, we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate,” the company posted on X from a new account called TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
The Ownership Deal
The outage comes just days after TikTok’s US operations officially transferred to new ownership to avoid a ban. The new structure:
- Oracle — 15% stake
- Silver Lake — 15% stake
- MGX (Abu Dhabi state-owned AI investment firm) — 15% stake
- ByteDance (original Chinese parent company) — 19.9% stake
Following the transfer, US users were prompted to accept an updated privacy policy.
Why Users Are Skeptical
Timing with Minneapolis protests: Social media videos have played a major role in documenting ICE activity in Minneapolis this weekend, including footage related to the shooting death of Alex Pretti. Some users question whether content unfavorable to the administration might be getting suppressed.
Selective content blocking: Reports indicate that some videos from UK channels, including BBC and The Guardian, were unavailable to US users while remaining accessible in other countries.
Algorithm concerns: Feeds showing old content, uploads getting stuck, and broken engagement metrics led many to speculate about algorithm adjustments — though there’s no evidence to support this.
What We Know (and Don’t Know)
TikTok’s explanation — a data center power issue — is plausible. The symptoms are consistent with infrastructure problems. But the timing is undeniably notable: a major outage within days of a politically charged ownership transfer, during a weekend of significant protest activity being documented on the platform.
Whether the issues are purely technical or something more remains to be seen.
The Bigger Picture
This incident highlights the heightened scrutiny TikTok now faces. Every glitch and content moderation decision will be examined more closely than before.
For users documenting important events, the episode is a reminder to cross-post to multiple platforms rather than relying on any single service.
Featured image credit: Pexels
