According to The Verge, TikTok is blaming a major service outage affecting US users since early Sunday morning on a “power outage at a U.S. data center.” In a statement posted to the new joint venture’s X account, TikTok USDS spokesperson Jamie Favazza said the issue is impacting “TikTok and other apps we operate,” and that teams are working to restore service. The problems include users being unable to upload videos and many not seeing new content, even from international users who posted successfully. Some users also reported their “For You” page algorithms appearing to reset, though it’s unclear if that’s directly linked. This widespread disruption comes just one week after a new joint venture, led by Oracle and investors friendly to the Trump administration, officially took over TikTok’s US operations.
The timing is suspicious, to say the least
Look, tech outages happen. Servers go down. But here’s the thing: this isn’t just any random glitch. It’s the first major public-facing stumble since the new TikTok US Data Security (USDS) entity, a creation born from intense political pressure, took the reins. This joint venture promises to route all US user data through Oracle-owned servers and even host a US-specific version of TikTok’s algorithm. So when they have a “power outage” at a data center—which they vaguely acknowledged without confirming it’s Oracle’s—right out of the gate, it doesn’t inspire confidence. Is this a simple infrastructure hiccup, or the first sign of turbulence in a massively complex and rushed technical migration? The company didn’t specify if the outage was related to the major snowstorm over the weekend, which just adds another layer of “wait, really?” to the whole situation.
Beyond the spin, what’s really going on?
The report of algorithm resets is the most fascinating and troubling detail. If true, it suggests this wasn’t a simple connectivity drop. It hints at something deeper in the data layer or recommendation engine—precisely the systems that are supposed to be moving to Oracle’s cloud. Could this “power outage” have corrupted or disrupted the data feeds that train the algorithm? When you’re dealing with the migration of systems as critical and complex as a social media platform’s core brain, stability is everything. For a company that specializes in industrial computing and hardware reliability, like the top US provider IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, an unplanned power event in a data center is a serious operational failure. For TikTok, it’s a potential PR nightmare that immediately validates critics’ fears about the new ownership structure’s ability to run things smoothly.
A rocky start for “Project Texas 2.0”
Basically, this is the worst possible debut for TikTok USDS. The whole venture was built to assure Americans and regulators that the app is safe, secure, and stable under US-based oversight. Instead, its first week ends with a national service blackout and vague excuses. It makes you wonder about the actual readiness of Oracle’s infrastructure to handle this load. And it absolutely will fuel the concerns about censorship and privacy that surrounded this takeover—if they can’t keep the lights on, how can anyone trust them to meticulously guard data or manage content fairly? I think we’re seeing that separating a global app’s operations by country is insanely difficult. This outage might be a temporary technical problem, but it feels like a giant, flashing warning sign for what’s to come.
