TikTok is finally running smoothly again in the United States. The platform spent the last week battling constant technical meltdowns and outages caused by severe winter storms. These problems arrived at a terrible time—less than a week after Oracle officially took over TikTok’s American operations.
The chaos began on Monday, January 26. TikTok admitted it was facing a “major infrastructure issue.” For several days, the app felt broken. Users reported constant bugs, login timeouts, and disappearing earnings. The glitches even made it look like popular videos had zero views or likes. TikTok tried to calm everyone down by explaining that a winter storm had knocked out one of Oracle’s primary data centers. They assured creators that their actual engagement data and money were safe, even if the screen showed a zero due to server timeouts.
By February 1, the company finally announced that its team had fixed the problems. They apologized for the mess and thanked the community for sticking with them. However, many users aren’t in a forgiving mood. The technical failures were just one part of a much larger headache for the social media giant.
Many people are now accusing TikTok of censoring specific content under its new management. Reports from The Guardian highlight how users struggled to share videos about ICE agents or the killing of Alex Pretti. Many creators felt that the app was intentionally hiding anti-ICE content. This perceived censorship, mixed with the week-long outages, triggered a mass exodus of users.
According to the analytics firm Sensor Tower, uninstalls of TikTok spiked by more than 150 percent in the five days following the ownership change. People aren’t just leaving; they are finding new places to hang out. While TikTok struggled to keep its servers running, a rival app called UpScrolled saw a massive wave of new downloads. TikTok might have fixed its servers, but it still faces a steep uphill battle to win back the trust of its American audience.
