TikTok faces major service outage in first weekend after U.S. ownership shift

TikTok experienced widespread disruptions affecting logins, video uploads and recommendation feeds during its first weekend under a new U.S.-owned structure.

Downdetector recorded a peak of 8,338 outage reports. while the company has not yet issued an official statement.

TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance finalized a majority U.S. ownership joint venture, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, with American and global investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX, to operate its U.S. business and comply with a 2024 U.S. law requiring foreign-owned platforms to divest or face a potential nationwide ban. According to the Associated Press, under the new structure, U.S. user data and algorithm operations are to be localized and retrained domestically to comply with national security regulations.

Multiple outlets, including The Verge and Economic Times, reported thousands of outage complaints, noting that their timing coincided with TikTok's recent U.S. ownership transition. According to IBTimes, experts caution that while large-scale corporate or infrastructure changes may require backend adjustments, the coincidence with service disruptions does not necessarily imply a direct causal relationship.

As of now, TikTok has not released further details addressing the reported outages or their potential connection to backend changes following the ownership restructuring.