As snowstorms pelted the U.S. on Sunday, TikTok users reported widespread issues with the app, like problems loading comments or unexpected behavior from the For You page algorithm. For some users, the problems continue to persist.
The timing of these outages lines up with the long-awaited creation of a separate U.S. TikTok entity last week, which the U.S. government mandated due to concerns about the Chinese government potentially accessing user data via the app’s former parent company, ByteDance. (Now, ByteDance owns less than 20% of the new TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while managing investors Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX own 15% each).
However, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture stated in a post on X that these issues were caused by a power outage at a U.S. data center.
“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,” the company said. “We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”
According to user-reported data from Downdetector, the outage is impacting users across the country.
TikTok’s reasoning for the glitches is logical, given that more than one million people in the U.S. have been impacted by power outages after the massive storm. But some users are suspicious given how soon the outages occurred after the U.S. joint venture was formally established.
The outage also overlaps with ongoing protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where thousands of ICE agents have been deployed since early January in what ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons called the “largest immigration operation ever.”
On Saturday, border patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, marking ICE’s second murder of a civilian in Minneapolis this month.
In the wake of the killing, some TikTok users said they had trouble searching on the app for information about the events in Minneapolis. The app malfunctions then led to panic about the possibility of government censorship. However, TikTok attributes these issues to its concurrent data center outage.
People had also expressed concern over the weekend about TikTok’s updated privacy policy, which includes language that allows TikTok to collect data about users, including their “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status.” However, as TechCrunch reported, some of these disclosures are not new and had appeared in TikTok’s privacy policy prior to the ownership deal’s close, primarily to comply with California’s Consumer Privacy Act.
While the recent TikTok outages and privacy policy changes seem to be run-of-the-mill problems with bad timing, Americans do have reason to be cautious about social media surveillance — especially in times of political unrest.
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