TikTok said its service has returned to normal in the United States after a weeklong data center outage caused widespread glitches. The company said the disruption led to technical issues that sparked allegations of political censorship.
In a post on X late Sunday, TikTok USDS Joint Venture said the outage was caused by severe winter weather. The storm knocked out a primary U.S. data center operated by Oracle, affecting tens of thousands of servers.
TikTok said the outage disrupted core features on the platform. Users faced problems posting new videos, discovering content, and seeing accurate view and like counts in real time.
The company said its teams worked around the clock with Oracle to safely restore services. TikTok also apologized to users for the disruption.
The outage drew attention after users and lawmakers accused TikTok of censoring content critical of the Trump administration. Senator Chris Murphy and other Democrats said videos about immigration enforcement were getting fewer views or were marked as “ineligible for recommendation.”
The controversy grew when some users reported they could not send direct messages containing the word “Epstein.” Messages triggered alerts claiming guideline violations, though TikTok later said there is no rule banning the name in private messages.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said his office was reviewing whether TikTok violated state law by suppressing Trump-critical content. His office said it had received and confirmed reports of such issues after TikTok’s recent ownership change.
The problems come weeks after TikTok’s U.S. business was transferred to a new joint venture led by Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX. TikTok said the outage—not censorship—was responsible for the issues and that normal operations have now resumed.
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