TikTok U.S. users impacted by another problem at Oracle

The transition of TikTok from China-based management to U.S.-based ownership hasn’t exactly gone smoothly so far. The U.S. version of the app has suffered several major outages that have led to significant user frustration and sparked speculation of interference by U.S. authorities.

And now, TikTok U.S. is once again dealing with the fallout from a local data center issue, with TikTok USDS JV (the official name of the new U.S.-based TikTok entity) informing users of another problem.

In an X post on March 3, TikTok USDS said an issue with an Oracle data center is impacting some parts of the TikTok U.S. user experience, and that creators “may temporarily experience lags in posting content while Oracle works to resolve the issue.”

In a separate X post on the same day, Oracle reported that some Oracle Cloud customers have been experiencing connection timeouts, errors, and increased latency in Ashburn due to a technical error. Oracle said it was working to address the problem.

It’s another blow for the U.S. version of TikTok, which experienced similar outages and issues in its first week after the changeover, when extreme weather conditions caused outages at several of Oracle’s U.S. data centers.

Those outages meant that some TikTok users weren’t seeing view counts on their posts, and weren’t able to upload their videos at all at certain points. Some users then incorrectly interpreted this as censorship, and accused the new TikTok U.S. group of limiting the reach of certain topics in the app and throttling what could be posted.

TikTok U.S. denied that there was any deliberate interference in the process, and said snowstorms caused problems at several data centers.

But the fact that this is happening again, in such a short period of time, will no doubt prompt more conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the new Trump-appointed TikTok management team is looking to limit in-app discussions.

Because as noted in the terms of the new TikTok U.S. deal, the TikTok USDS group will have input into how TikTok’s algorithm functions, and potentially what gets amplified, and what doesn’t, in the app.

The official statement from TikTok USDS explains that: “The [US] Joint Venture will retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data. The content recommendation algorithm will be secured in Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment.”

The fact that those same Oracle systems are dropping out, just as more politically-charged discussion starts trending again, will no doubt prompt more concerns on this front, though it is likely just bad timing and poor luck in terms of system reliability.

Though if TikTok’s U.S. app keeps dropping out at critical junctures, that could become a trend, which could point to some kind of interference.

Again, it seems very unlikely that there’s anything untoward at play, but it’s not a great start for the new TikTok/Oracle joint venture.