TikTok has confirmed that its platform is fully operational again following a service disruption last week that impacted users across the United States. The short-video platform, which recently transitioned to a new U.S. ownership structure, currently serves more than 220 million users in the country.
Outage Caused by Winter Storm at Data Center
According to TikTok, the outage was triggered by a severe winter storm that caused a power failure at a key Oracle-operated data center supporting its U.S. operations. The power disruption led to network and storage issues, affecting tens of thousands of servers responsible for keeping the platform running.
TikTok Confirms Restoration in X Statement
In a statement shared on X, TikTok said the outage disrupted several core features, including video uploads, content discovery, and real-time metrics such as likes and view counts. The company added that services have now been fully restored.
TikTok service restored. pic.twitter.com/Pn3ZSTmKU3
— TikTok USDS Joint Venture (@tiktokusdsjv) February 1, 2026
Outage Coincided With Ownership Restructuring
The disruption occurred around the same time the U.S. finalized a deal to restructure TikTok’s ownership. Under the agreement, a U.S.-based investor consortium called TikTok USDS acquired an 80% controlling stake, while ByteDance retained the remaining 20% ownership.
User Impact and Creator Issues
During the outage, users reported slow loading times, search failures, posting issues, and frequent timeouts. Some creators also noticed their videos showing zero views while the issue persisted. TikTok acknowledged the problems and said it was actively working to stabilize the platform, although intermittent disruptions continued for several days.
Rival Platforms See Growth
The temporary instability appeared to benefit competing social platforms. Skylight, a short-video app backed by Mark Cuban, saw its user base surge past 380,000 users in the week the TikTok deal was finalized. Meanwhile, Upscrolled climbed to the second spot in the U.S. App Store’s social media category and recorded over 41,000 downloads within days, according to data from AppFigures.
