TikTok says it’s steadily getting its U.S. systems back on track after a data center power outage triggered widespread glitches for users across the country. The disruption couldn’t have come at a worse moment: it hit shortly after TikTok finalized a major shift in its U.S. operations, including the launch of a separate U.S. entity backed by American investors—an effort designed to help the platform avoid the risk of a nationwide ban.
As the transition unfolded, many users began reporting problems that made the app feel unusually unstable. TikTok search results weren’t loading properly, videos were failing to play, comments wouldn’t appear, and posts sometimes stalled or didn’t publish at all. Some people also noticed “For You” recommendations behaving strangely, with content surfacing that didn’t match their usual interests.
On Monday, TikTok pointed to a power outage at a data center that supports its U.S. infrastructure, saying the incident affected TikTok as well as other apps. Now, TikTok’s U.S. joint venture team says the situation is improving, but it isn’t fully resolved yet. According to the latest update, the company has made “significant progress” working alongside its U.S. data center partner, though U.S. users may still encounter technical issues—especially when trying to post new content. TikTok says it’s working to restore full performance as quickly as possible and will continue sharing updates.
TikTok hasn’t publicly identified which data center partner experienced the outage. The incident also occurred while a major winter storm swept across the United States over several days, affecting roughly 220 million Americans—an event that could plausibly complicate data center operations and regional infrastructure stability.
Still, the timing has fueled skepticism in some corners of the user base, particularly because the disruption overlapped with escalating civil unrest tied to the death of U.S. citizen Alex Pretti during an encounter with ICE agents. Some users have questioned whether the outage explanation fully accounts for the platform’s issues.
In earlier communications, TikTok warned that U.S. users could continue to experience multiple bugs, slower load times, and requests timing out, including while uploading or publishing content. The company also said creators might temporarily see zero views or likes on new posts, and some may think earnings data is missing. TikTok attributed these creator-side problems to server timeouts rather than lost performance data.
TikTok’s key reassurance: user data and engagement metrics are not gone, even if they’re not displaying correctly in the moment. The company says those numbers should return as systems stabilize and service is restored to full capacity.
