TikTok became mostly American-owned last week, but it’s been facing some serious issues since the video sharing platform was handed over to American investors.
During the weekend, some TikTok users reported issues while using the service, with many reporting issues in uploading videos. TikTok later announced that the issue was caused by power outages at US data centers, likely caused by the severe winter weather that hit much of the US over the weekend, which caused widespread power outages.
Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate. We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.
— TikTok USDS Joint Venture (@tiktokusdsjv) January 26, 2026
TikTok users claimed that they saw upload areas when trying to post videos connected to the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis. There were also claims of censorship, due to users having their videos reviewed, or due to receiving fewer than expected views for their videos.
Some users had their shooting-related posts flagged as “Ineligible for Recommendation,” or “temporarily suspended.”
Head of communications for TikTok US, Jamie Favazza, told NBC News that claims of censorship were unfounded and that the problems were due to the US data center outage. She said that while the company was working to fully restore service, users might still experience issues when making new posts.
As of Monday, TikTok said it was still working to fix its infrastructure bugs, and that some users could still experience slower loading times or seeing content that doesn’t load while the fixes are being made. Some users may also see zero likes or views for their posts.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom chimed in on Monday.
“It’s time to investigate,” Newsom posted on Threads. “I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.”
TheVerge reports that some TikTok-ers have made the move to video sharing platform UpScrolled. which at the time of this article is the number one social networking app on the App Store (the number two free app overall). We don’t have any information about how many downloads are actually being used.
There have also been complaints from users expressing concern about TikTok’s privacy policy language, which lays out the sensitive personal information TikTok could collect about users, including their “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status.”
However, as pointed out by TechCrunch, the service’s privacy policy also included that wording when under Chinese control, and that the wording is there to allow the company to comply with California’s Consumer Privacy Act. Under the act, companies must disclose to consumers the “sensitive information” they collect. Other social media apps’ privacy policies usually contain similar text.
