TikTok apologises after thousands of US users report app issues

TikTok’s new US owner has apologised to users for “disruption” after thousands reported issues affecting the video-sharing app.

Platform outage monitor Downdetector said it has seen more than 600,000 reports of glitches from US TikTok users over the weekend.

Problems flagged by people include videos appearing repeatedly on “For You” feeds, some content not displaying and new posts getting “zero views” – with issues appearing to continue for some on Monday.

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which now oversees the platform and its operations in the US, said it was “working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate”.

“We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service,” it added in a post on social media platform X.

“We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”

Oracle, TikTok’s US data centre partner, declined to comment on the outage.

The cloud computing giant has taken on a larger role in TikTok’s American operations under a deal securing the app’s future in the US, which was finalised on Thursday.

The issues prompted speculation and concerns that TikTok’s glitches were a result of its new ownership or anticipated changes to the US app’s algorithm.

US TikTok users started complaining of issues affecting their TikTok feeds and content on Sunday.

Downdetector told the BBC it had seen 663,061 reports from US users between Saturday evening and Monday, with some reporting a “total outage” across the platform.

Reports appeared to fall overnight on Sunday, before climbing again on Monday as some TikTok users in the US awoke to continued issues.

CapCut, a video editing app owned by TikTok, also saw thousands of reports of problems from users on Downdetector.

Users of the video-sharing app in the US took to rival social media platforms to post about the app’s problems.

“Okay so is anyone else’s TikTok being extremely slow, keeps showing you old videos, doesn’t show you what you what you actually search, and doesn’t load certain stuff….,” one X user asked on Sunday.

In posts seen by BBC News on X, some TikTok users said they could not view creator tools on the app, including those allowing them to see their split of advertising revenue paid out by TikTok to creators behind popular posts.

Some also said videos they had uploaded to the platform did not have the same visibility as they would usually, or were “stuck at zero views”.

As part of President Donald Trump’s deal allowing TikTok to continue operating in the US, Oracle will inspect and retrain a separate version of its algorithm for American users.

The cloud giant is one of three managing investors in TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, maintaining a 15% stake in the spun-off US entity.

It is also responsible for securing US user data more broadly – something it was already overseeing in part under an existing security arrangement called Project Texas.