Users seek alternate apps amid TikTok US as outage

TikTok’s service in the United States has been experiencing widespread outages and performance issues, affecting uploads, personalised feeds and core features since late Sunday, according to platform reports and user complaints tracked online. The disruptions come just days after TikTok completed its transition to a US-based joint venture — part of an agreement intended to keep the service operating in the country under local oversight and regulatory expectations.

Users across the US reported that the For You Page failed to refresh, uploaded videos showed zero views shortly after posting, and comment threads did not load properly. Outage monitoring site DownDetector recorded a sharp spike in reports, signalling that the problem was widespread rather than isolated.

TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, the entity managing the US operation, said the root cause was a power outage at a US data centre, which led to cascading failures impacting TikTok and other apps hosted at the site.

The timing of the outage has drawn notice because it follows TikTok’s ownership transition, in which investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX took stakes in a new US entity to address regulatory concerns. The outage has prompted creators to question platform stability at a critical moment for the app’s future in the U.S. market.

Meanwhile, alternative social apps are seeing measurable boosts in popularity amid the TikTok disruptions. TechCrunch reported that Upscrolled, a newer short-form video platform, saw a surge in downloads following news of the TikTok service issues and its US takeover, with users exploring alternatives amid reliability concerns. The increase in Upscrolled downloads is part of a broader trend of competitive response whenever dominant platforms experience instability.