TikTok Restores Service After Weather-Related Outage

TikTok says it has fully restored its services after a series of outages last week disrupted the experience for users across the U.S. The platform, which now operates under a new U.S. ownership structure, has more than 220 million American users.

According to the company, the disruption was caused by a major winter snowstorm that knocked out power at a U.S. data center operated by Oracle, which supports TikTok’s domestic operations.

“We have successfully restored TikTok back to normal after a significant outage caused by winter weather,” the company said in a post on X. “The storm led to a power outage at a primary U.S. data center, triggering network and storage issues that impacted tens of thousands of servers. This affected many core TikTok features, including content posting, discovery, and the real-time display of likes and view counts.”

The outage coincided with a major corporate transition. In January, the U.S. finalized a deal that spun TikTok into a separate entity. A U.S.-based investor consortium known as TikTok USDS now holds an 80% controlling stake, while ByteDance retains the remaining 20%.

Following the deal’s completion—and as the snowstorm hit—users began reporting widespread glitches. Problems included difficulty posting content, search failures, slow load times, time-outs, and posts showing zero views. TikTok initially said it was working to fix the issues, but disruptions continued for several days before service was fully restored.

TikTok’s ownership transition and technical troubles created an unexpected boost for rival platforms. Skylight, a short-video app backed by Mark Cuban and built on the AT protocol, saw its user base jump to more than 380,000 users in the week the deal was finalized. Meanwhile, UpScrolled—created by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist Issam Hijazi—climbed to second place in the U.S. App Store’s social media rankings and was downloaded 41,000 times within days, according to Appfigures.