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While social media rumors have suggested the errors are examples of censorship, more than a day after the issues began, TikTok USDS says the problems are the result of a power outage at a data center that it is working to resolve. Rumors of censorship targeting anti-ICE protesting or attempting to block discussion of Jeffrey Epstein appear to be misguided (even the governor of California is resharing misinformation posted on Twitter by “intelligentpawg” and PopBase), with problems and glitches blocking all kinds of videos and messages on the service through Monday night.
Starting early Sunday morning, TikTok’s now under new ownership US arm started breaking down just a couple of days after Oracle & Co took the reins. Its For You page algorithm is suddenly unreliable, while features like comments are failing to load or loading slowly, and publishing new videos seems nearly impossible for many people.
Read on below for the latest updates about the ongoing TikTok problems, as we try to sift through social media claims to see which ones are true and which ones are just more ragebait.
Is New TikTok banning the word “Epstein” in DMs? Not really.
While tweets from random users, the governor of California, and PopBase claimed TikTok US DMs now censor “Epstein,” testing it from our end showed that its messaging feature bans many innocuous single-word messages, like “test.” Using the convicted sex offender’s name in a sentence, however, goes through unbanned.
TikTok DM screenshot showing the words “Epstein” and “test” trip the service’s ban by themselves, but not in a sentence.
TikTok blames its US problems on a power outage
Image: The Verge
TikTok says a power outage is causing ongoing issues and outages that started in the US early Sunday morning. In an email to The Verge, TikTok USDS spokesperson Jamie Favazza pointed to a statement posted to the joint venture’s newly-created X account, which says the company has been “working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate.”
On Sunday, many US users, including some of us here at The Verge, reported not being able to upload videos to TikTok or see most new videos, including new videos uploaded successfully by users from outside the US. Others said that their algorithm appeared to “reset,” though it’s unclear if that’s linked to the power outage, too.
TikTok USA is broken
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
TikTok is breaking down.
If the mobile app loads, it’s not consistently showing comments or other features, and the algorithm managing the For You page doesn’t feel like it’s working correctly.
Screenshot: Downdetector
What TikTok’s new owners mean for your feed
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok is officially under new ownership in the US, and that could spell big changes for the video-sharing app. On January 22nd, ByteDance – TikTok’s Chinese parent company — and a group of investors closed a $14 billion deal to spin off the platform’s US operations, introducing a new slate of American executives.
The Silver Lake investment firm, Abu Dhabi’s MGX, and the cloud giant Oracle will each have 15 percent stakes in the new TikTok US Data Security (USDS) Joint Venture LLC. ByteDance will still hold a 19.9 percent stake in the company, in line with the divest-or-ban law that went into effect last year — though the deal was pushed through with help from President Donald Trump in persistent disregard of the law.
English (US) ·