According to AppleInsider, just days after completing a deal that transferred control of its U.S. business to a politically connected group of billionaires, TikTok suffered a widespread outage starting early Sunday, January 25. The new owners include Oracle chair Larry Ellison, a prominent Republican donor and ally of former President Donald Trump. Users reported failed uploads, broken feeds, stalled moderation, and an algorithm that suddenly felt generic, with some political content struggling to publish. TikTok’s new U.S. entity blamed a power outage at a U.S. data center, but the timing has fueled intense suspicion. The deal itself was framed as a solution to a federal “divest-or-ban” law, aiming to keep the app used by roughly 200 million Americans accessible.
The worst possible timing
Look, tech outages happen. Servers fail. But here’s the thing: the optics here are just terrible. The platform’s first major technical meltdown occurs immediately after it’s handed to a small club of ultra-wealthy investors with direct lines to the Trump White House. And the symptoms—videos stuck “under review,” a For You Page that loses its creepy-perfect personalization—are exactly the kind of glitches that look like censorship when they happen during a weekend of protests.
Is there proof it’s intentional? No. The problems seem systemic, hitting all sorts of content. But perception is its own reality. When your new boss is someone who previously wanted to ban you outright, every technical hiccup gets a political autopsy. People aren’t just seeing a broken app; they’re seeing a potential test run of a broken speech platform.
Ownership is everything and nothing
So the deal is done. Problem solved, right? Not even close. This transfer solves one regulatory headache by creating a dozen new ones. ByteDance still has a minority stake and licenses the core tech, including the algorithm. The new U.S. joint venture says it’s retraining that algorithm and overseeing data security on U.S. cloud infrastructure. But how do you verify that? Who’s checking?
And then, almost comically, the new owners immediately updated the privacy policy to collect more precise location data and info on how you use AI tools. I mean, come on. For critics worried about surveillance, it’s like handing them a megaphone. The BBC notes you can opt out, but that requires trust—which is in critically short supply.
Deplatforming is still on the table
This is the part everyone seems to forget. The “divest-or-ban” law didn’t vanish. Regulators can still look at this structure and say, “Nope, this doesn’t cut it.” If they do, Apple and Google get the order to remove TikTok from their app stores. It’s a real possibility. Lawmakers are already publicly grilling the company about ByteDance’s ongoing role.
The new joint venture’s announcement pitches this as a security compromise. But it feels more like a temporary ceasefire. The platform is in a state of political limbo, and this outage, tracked heavily on sites like Downdetector, just reminds everyone how fragile the whole arrangement is. For creators and advertisers, that uncertainty is a killer. Your livelihood depends on a system that could be yanked away or fundamentally altered on a regulator’s whim.
A flashpoint with no clear future
Basically, we’ve collapsed two huge debates into one messy situation. “Deplatforming” is about the app’s very existence in U.S. stores. “Censorship” is about what happens on the app itself. This outage blurred those lines for users, making both fears feel more immediate.
The transfer was supposed to provide stability. Instead, it’s exposed how many unresolved issues are still on the board: regulatory risk, opaque control, expanded data collection, and now, technical reliability under new management. TikTok isn’t just an app anymore; it’s a perpetual flashpoint. And until there’s real transparency on who controls what Americans see and how that control is exercised, every outage will be a political event. That’s no way to run a social network.
