Update at 7 p.m. ET: “We are continuing to address a major infrastructure issue due to a power outage at one of our US data center partner sites,” TikTok said. “The network is back online, but “the outage is due to a cascading system failure that we are working with our data center partner to resolve,” TikTok USDS wrote on X. “
In the interim, you may experience slow load times and timeouts when scrolling or posting. Creators may also see zero views or likes on videos, while earnings may not show. It added, “This is a display error due to server timeout. Your original data and engagement are protected.”
Original story:
Shortly after the Trump administration announced a deal to take over TechTalk’s U.S. operations, the app began malfunctioning. People faced problems uploading videos and saw old or repetitive videos on your page (FYP) for them. This has led to speculation that Tektok’s new owners are messing with the algorithm, but Tektok attributes the problems to power outages.
“As of yesterday, we have been working to restore our services following a power outage in the US data center that affected TechTalk and other apps we work on,” the company posted this morning on a new X account from the US side of the business, dubbed the TechTalk USDS joint venture. “We are working closely with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We regret the disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”
(Credit: Down Detector)
Reports of TikTok trouble spiked starting at 3:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, with 36,000 reports in 15 minutes. Complaints have dropped since then, but not before Down Detector logged more than 615,000 reports this morning, with users primarily experiencing issues with the app and their FYPS.
According to posts on social media, users are experiencing various issues, including being unable to sign in, seeing old content in their feeds, not being able to watch new videos, and not being able to post their own content. PCMag’s social team tried to post a video over the weekend, but it got stuck in review mode for hours. The number of engagements was also closed. Some videos did not report viewership but were liked.
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The Verge noticed that some US accounts were also unable to view selected videos that were viewable elsewhere around the world. It found that selected videos from UK channels, such as the BBC and The Guardian, were not available in the US.
All this comes days after the social site’s US operations were transferred to new owners to avoid a tectonic ban in the US. Three companies—Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, a state-owned AI investment firm in Abu Dhabi—each now own a 15 percent stake in the business. China-based ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake.
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US-based TechTalk users were then asked to accept an updated privacy policy. PCMAG recommends reviewing the highlights to understand what has changed.
In light of the unrest in Minneapolis, where social media videos have been instrumental in getting the word out about Ice’s activity, including the shooting death of Alex Pretty this weekend, some have speculated that Tektok is censoring content offensive to the administration. We have to see if the data center problem improves after it is fixed.
Disclosure: Down Detector is owned by PCmag parent company Ziff Davis.
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