TikTok outage live updates — power outage blamed, TikTok issues apology

Finally, after multiple hours of silence, US TikTok finally released a statement on the new USDS X account.

If you can’t see the tweet or want to avoid X here’s what it says:

“We’re continuing to resolve a major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage at one of our U.S. data center partner sites. While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve together with our data center partner.”

There’s more and it goe son to say that you might see multiple bugs, slower load times or timed-out requests including when uploading videos.

It also acknowledges the 0 views issue. The note says that data and engagement information are safe but may suffer from server timeouts.

CNBC is reporting that the daily average app uninstalls of TikTok in the United States have shot up 150% in the last week.

Much of the increase is being blamed on skepticism of the new join ownership and the newly updated privacy policy.

So, are you among those who plan on deleting?

What you’ve had to say

We have a poll up, and 400 Digitpatrox readers responded, with 97% of you saying that yes, you are experiencing issues with TikTok.

We’ve had a few readers reach out for more concrete timelines, but so far I can’t provide that information, and TikTok has not deigned to share it.

Others have reached out, concerned about a lack of transparency from TikTok and concern that the new ownership is suppressing content, especially around the ICE operations in Minnesota, at the direction of the current presidential administration. That was a widely held suspicion and concern before the US assets of TikTok were sold to a consortium that includes Oracle’s Larry Ellison, an ardent Trump ally.

At this time, the transition just happened in the last week. Without a significant study of the algorithm and what is being promoted or suppressed, it’s hard to say if that accusation holds water, yet.

I will note that Oracle, which owns 15% of the new TikTok US, has hosted US user data since 2022, according to Wired. And three of its data centers are located in Ashburn, VA, smack dab in the middle of the massive winter storm Fern affecting much of the eastern and southeastern portions of the United States. There is also a center in Chicago, just on the outer edge of Fern, but it’s not clear if the data center issues stem from Fern.

TikTok response

I reached out to a press email on the USDS site. The spokesperson who responded pointed me back toward the tweet from earlier today.

As a reminder, it says: “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.”

I was told by “TikTok USDS Joint Venture” that the data center caused service disruption and is continuing to impact TikTok.

It was confirmed that they are working to restore service, but a timeline was not provided.

An X account purporting to be the USDS Joint Venture in charge of TikTok posted a tweet today saying that a data center power outage caused the disruption. The post apologized for the outage but has not posted since.

Users and Digitpatrox readers are reporting that there are still problems with the social app.

We have reached out to TikTok USDS via email for more information and will update if they respond.

Three hours ago an alleged account claiming to be part of the US version of TikTok claimed that the company has been working to restore services.

Since then, there have been no updates. The outage has refused to totally go away as reports have hovered around 1,500 reports for multiple hours.

It trudges on.

I’ve seen Redditors saying you can get around the new TOS by trying to delete it in Airplane mode. Though that may not work for everyone.

TechCrunch points out that much of the language in the update isn’t actually new and existed in previous privacy agreements.

The difference is now the US government partially owns the service and is collecting data for its own purposes rather than China.

Maybe delete it just in case.

The Verge is reporting on discovered documents that reveal how companies like TikTok, Meta and Google internally discussed teenage use of their social platforms.

“A 2021 document from TikTok recognized that compulsive use of its platform was “rampant,” but said that meant it needed to provide users “better tools to understand their usage, manage it effectively, and ensure being on TikTok is time well spent.” The company saw it as a good thing that TikTok users were more actively engaged on their app than on other platforms, since “research suggests passive use of social media is more harmful.” TikTok did not immediately provide a comment on the latest document release.”

The most recent video on the company’s TikTok page is filled with angry users demanding they fix the app.

TikTok, Meta and YouTube are all heading to the courtroom over allegations that the social media platforms are “fueling a youth mental health crisis” Reuters is reporting.

That lawsuit starts this week and is only the first of several cases that are expected to tackle similar issues against social platforms this year.

Creators typically gauge the level of success of their videos by looking at how many views they’ve generated. Many users are reporting that new videos uploaded to the video sharing platform are getting zero or few views. Meanwhile, other TikTok users are reporting that they’re seeing views again, but nowhere to the degree they’re used to getting before the disruption.

Just days ago, TikTok rolled out its updated terms of service — which greeted users when they opened the app. Of course, users had to agree before they could proceed to use the app.

What’s interesting, though, is the amount of changes found within it, including data sourcing, precise location tracking, generate AI rules, and much more. There’s also a new 180-day rule about user names. If an account stays active for 180 days, TikTok reserves the right to reset the name, which would make it up for grabs to anyone. There’s been a ton of commotion from the community about this, including this Reddit thread.

Disruption to feeds, longer loading times

One of our editors, John Velasco, explained that he was seeing disruptions with his feeds on TikTok, which could be stem from the power outage at its U.S. data center. Not only that, but he also recalls that user pages were also taking much longer to load, including the comments section.