More than a day after TikTok’s issues began, TikTok USDS says the problems are the result of a power outage at a data center and subsequent cascading systems failure.
Starting early Sunday morning, TikTok’s now under new ownership US arm started breaking down just a couple of days after Oracle & Co took the reins. Its For You page algorithm is suddenly unreliable, while features like comments are failing to load or loading slowly, and publishing new videos seems nearly impossible for many people.
Rumors of censorship targeting anti-ICE protesting or attempting to block discussion of Jeffrey Epstein appear to be misguided (even the governor of California is resharing misinformation now), with problems blocking traffic to all kinds of videos and messages on the service through Monday night.
Read on below for the latest updates about the ongoing TikTok problems.
- TikTok USA is back.
We can confirm that basic features in the US do seem to work reliably now on the new Trump-friendly entity’s servers, even if the algorithm still seems a little wonky at times. Per TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC:
We have successfully restored TikTok back to normal after a significant outage caused by winter weather took down a primary US data center site operated by Oracle. The winter storm led to a power outage which caused network and storage issues at the site and impacted tens of thousands of servers that help keep TikTok running in the US.
Great, but how many of ya’ll have abandoned the platform?
- Oracle admits it broke TikTok.
Without explaining why its cloud status page doesn’t list any outages, TikTok USDS part-owner Oracle outed itself as the previously unnamed “US data center partner” that experienced a power outage over the weekend, blocking videos from publishing and unraveling its all-important algorithm for a few days.
Michael Egbert, Oracle Spokesperson:
Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok. The challenges U.S. TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve.
TikTok US is mostly back up and running
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeAs we moved into the third day of the TikTokalypse, the app appears to have finally stabilized in the US, as we verified that it’s possible to consistently publish new videos and even have other people watch them. That hasn’t been a simple task since the service started having problems early Sunday morning, but on Tuesday morning, I was able to post a new short video and watch one published by my colleague in the UK.
A statement from TikTok USDS, the new Trump admin-assigned owners and operators of the brand in the United States, said it has “made significant progress in recovering our U.S. infrastructure” with its still-unnamed US data center partner. It also noted that US users may continue to experience some bugs, particularly when it comes to posting new content. While I am able to see videos from outside the US, a newly created UK account failed to load, as well as a number of other profiles.
Read Article >- TikTok is still struggling in the US due to a “cascading systems failure.”
TikTok’s US service crashed early Sunday morning, and as of late Monday night, it still hasn’t fully recovered.
After finally announcing the problem started with a power outage at an unnamed partner’s data center, TikTok USDS followed up with an updated statement saying, “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,” and listing some of the bugs users are experiencing. There’s still no ETA for a full fix.
Image: TikTok USDSJV (X) - Is New TikTok banning the word “Epstein” in DMs? Not really.
Despite claims floating around social media, the truth is a bit more complicated, not least by the fact that TikTok in the US is still largely down, about a day and a half after its data center power outage problems started.
While tweets from random users, the governor of California, and PopBase claimed TikTok US DMs now censor “Epstein,” testing it from our end showed that its messaging feature bans many innocuous single-word messages, like “test.” Using the convicted sex offender’s name in a sentence, however, goes through unbanned.
TikTok DM screenshot showing the words “Epstein” and “test” trip the service’s ban by themselves, but not in a sentence. TikTok blames its US problems on a power outage
Image: The VergeTikTok says a power outage is causing ongoing issues and outages that started in the US early Sunday morning. In an email to The Verge, TikTok USDS spokesperson Jamie Favazza pointed to a statement posted to the joint venture’s newly-created X account, which says the company has been “working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate.”
On Sunday, many US users, including some of us here at The Verge, reported not being able to upload videos to TikTok or see most new videos, including new videos uploaded successfully by users from outside the US. Others said that their algorithm appeared to “reset,” though it’s unclear if that’s linked to the power outage, too.
Read Article >TikTok USA is broken
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesTikTok has suffered from extensive problems on its first weekend after completing a transaction that changed the ownership of its US arm. According to Downdetector, the issues initially spiked in the early hours of Sunday morning, but many users, including editors here at The Verge, are still reporting errors.
On Monday morning, TikTok USDS head of communications Jamie Favazza responded to our inquiries, pointing to a post on a newly-created X account for the US joint venture that said its current issues are the result of a data center power outage.
Read Article >- TikTok is breaking down.
Whether this is just a regular outage or a result of this week’s changes in management, reports tracked on Downdetector and Reddit confirm many people are having trouble loading TikTok right now.
If the mobile app loads, it’s not consistently showing comments or other features, and the algorithm managing the For You page doesn’t feel like it’s working correctly.
Update, January 26th: TikTok is still having problems in the US, which it says are connected to a data center power outage.
Screenshot: Downdetector
