TiKTok faces widespread outages following ownership change
In its first few days under new ownership, the U.S. version of popular video-sharing platform TikTok has faced widespread outages — as well as backlash from users, celebrities and politicians and rising interest in an alternative open-sourced video app and potential rival called Skylight Social, according to a report by Mediapost.
On Thursday, TikTok announced that it had closed a deal to transition its U.S. business to TikTik USDS Joint Venture LLC, a consortium of investors which includes U.S.-based tech company Oracle, a tech company run by Larry Ellison, a Republican donor and close ally to President Donald Trump.
According to TikTok’s statement, the new, U.S.-based version of TikTok will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for U.S. users.”
However, criticism has erupted over alleged censorship concerns on the new U.S. TikTok, with creators like singer-songwriter Billie Eilish claiming that “TikTok is silencing people” with regard to unprecedentedly low views on videos that would typically succeed on the platform.
This includes Eilish’s brother Finneas O’Connell’s recent video criticizing the killing of protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, which received a low “like” count, although Finneas has 4 million followers.
On Sunday, Steve Vladeck, a professor of law at Georgetown University, stated on Bluesky that a video he made addressing ICE officers going into peoples’ homes without warrants had been “under review” on TikTok for hours. Once it was uploaded, the video received under 30 “likes,” although Vladeck has 13,000 followers.
Megan Stalter, an actress known for her work on “Hacks” as well as her TikTok video presence, posted that she “tried for hours to upload the same video and it wouldn’t show it to one person.” Stalter added that she will delete her TikTok account permanently.
These concerns have reached the government level as well, with Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) recently posting about TikTok’s alleged suppression of a user’s criticism of ICE raids. “I know it’s hard to track all the threats to democracy out there right now, but this is at the top of the list,” Murphy wrote on X.
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