TikTok Faces Outage and Censorship Concerns Days After U.S. Ownership Deal Closes

[MacRumors]

TikTok last week finalized a deal to hand over its U.S. operations to a majority American-owned venture, and things aren't exactly running smoothly for the new U.S. company so far.

Over the weekend, some U.S. TikTok users were unable to upload videos, which TikTok attributed to a power outage at a U.S. data center. TikTok users found they were unable to upload videos related to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Saturday shooting in Minneapolis, leading to concerns over censorship. Users saw their videos put into a review process, or experienced fewer than expected video views. Some users received messages that their posts related to the shooting had been flagged as "Ineligible for Recommendation," while others were temporarily suspended.

This evening, TikTok said that it is still working to resolve the infrastructure issue, which apparently caused a "cascading systems failure" leading to a long list of bugs. TikTok users may see slower load times, timed-out requests, and 0 views or likes on videos.

The ongoing outage and the accompanying censorship fears have caused some TikTok users to abandon the platform for UpScrolled, an alternative video sharing social platform. UpScrolled is currently the number eight free app in the U.S. App Store, but it was as high as number two earlier today.

Users have also expressed concerns about an updated TikTok privacy policy that suggests it collects "citizenship or immigration status" along with precise user location information, but the prior TikTok privacy policy also included that wording.

The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is 80.1 percent owned by U.S. and global investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The three companies each own 15 percent as managing investors, and other U.S. stakeholders include the Dell Family Office and affiliates of Susquehanna International Group. TikTok parent company ByteDance continues to hold a 19.9 percent stake.

A seven-member majority-American board of directors is operating the U.S. version of TikTok, with Adam Presser, TikTok's former global head of operations serving as CEO.

Under the agreement, the venture handles U.S. data protection, content moderation, and algorithm security. TikTok's recommendation algorithm is being retrained and updated on U.S. user data, and it has been secured in Oracle's cloud environment.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: TikTok Faces Outage and Censorship Concerns Days After U.S. Ownership Deal Closes

 

[spartan1967]

Did someone forget to pay a contractor or two?

 

[DrewDaHilp1]

You get warning for trying to IM Epstein.🙄

 

[Delivered]

Ehh probably scrubbing video of uh certain conflicts and news items to make sure only videos that support an official narrative remain. What a time to be alive. Capitalism may have beaten Communism but Soviet style censorship is quickly becoming the new norm.

Did someone forget to pay a contractor or two?

 

[DHagan4755]

I'm not a fan of TikTok being owned in any part by the government. My hope (even if it's a dim hope at this point) that the government only owns it for a limited time & sells its majority stake to someone who wants to improve the platform (if that's even possible).

 

[AppleTO]

TikTok's recommendation algorithm is being retrained and updated on U.S. user data, and it has been secured in Oracle's cloud environment.

Can you imagine if after all of this the algorithm somehow leaked out of Oracles’s servers? That would be hilarious.

 

[ghostface147]

The algorithm is definitely different.

 

[hieranonymous]

The Ellisons et al acquired the American operations of TikTok at gunpoint with the express purpose of turning it into a right-wing wasteland. They’ve now accomplished that aim. The intention was always to break it.

That’s also why the TOS have been updated with weird language about reproductive data, sexual orientation and immigration status, in addition to even more invasive location tracking. It’s just a funnel for Palantir now. The only thing to do is steer clear of it.

 

[CapitalIdea]

Is anyone really surprised? The same situation as oil execs and CBS knowing about the Venezuela operation before members of Congress did. TikTok will basically become state media if that turd has anything to do with it.

 

[btrach144]

Censorship is not a bug but a feature on CCP/US gov owned platform. Deleted my account and app

 

[Makosuke]

So, basically:

Old TikTok: Try to post about the Chinese government killing protesters in the Tiananmen Square Massacre or other Chinese government human rights abuses, and your content will be downgraded or back-door censored.

New TikTok: Try to post about the US government killing protesters or other US government human rights abuses, and your content will be downgraded or back-door censored.

Such an improvement! No word yet on whether you're also still getting back-door censored if you try to badmouth the Chinese government.

 

[xander49x]

We are looking at Government overreach; they are suppressing news, which is why I left the app.

 

[Jetscreamer]

Thank God and tRUMP we no longer have to deal with CCP surveillance and censorship. American freeDUMB just works.

 

[Sowelu]

'Censorship concerns'

Ya think?

Nice soft landing there, MacRumors. If you decide to crawl up Trump's descending colon as well, give Tim Cook our regards.

Even if this is a glitch, gee, what a coincidence. Looks like the new owners of TikTok got their marching orders from the Pedo-In-Chief, or, at best, the Pedo-Protector-In-Chief.

I am sure that this 'outage' was giving them time to MAGAify the algorithm where up is down, wrong is right, legit and proven traitors are somehow patriots, and the worst humans are 'religious' as they worship evil alt-Jesus since the one that the rest of the world knows, whether you're religious or not, was a woke, liberal, hippie, Jew. So yeah, they must've had those servers working overtime converting the algorithms for those living on Earth 2.

The bottom line is, TikTok is now state-run, like, really state-run. These are not false accusations like the ones from the painfully gullible and ignorant MAGA mouth-breathers before Twitter was destroyed by the country's biggest Welfare Queen and actual speech suppressor.

PSA: I don't interact or argue with MAGA cultists. It's like trying to reason with poorly programmed robots that just know how to repeat debunked talking points from actual fake news outlets.

Thread happily ignored.

 

[x86dude]

Bear in mind that everything you say or have ever said on the internet, DMs or email, is or will be AI scanned to make a detailed data base of your views. It will not just be used by immigration, but for example, you or your child, may not get that job because of it. I think they have access to iCloud as well, the difference being that wont be publicly acknowledged such as in a open court trial. US citizens now, international to follow.

 

[RSmith2023]

This administration, through its lapdog Bondi and the gestapo tactics of ICE/CPB, are terrorizing and killing US citizens.

Forgive me if I don’t care about the death of TikTok at the hands of the same draft-dodger in chief. (Where was this energy as the far right gobbled up regional news outlets and threatened colleges and universities by withholding funds?

Honestly… what did people expect? That he was fighting to SAVE TikTok in the US due to his altruistic nature?

Even after everything you have seen in just the 1st year of his 2nd term, ya’ll ain’t mad enough.

It’s tolerable as long as it doesn’t directly affect you or those close to you. You keep saying “it can’t get any worse and he only has a couple of years left”… but what if this is all a smokescreen so he can stay in office? (He tried it before) He has shown zero respect for the constitution so don’t quote term limits to me.

Again, ya’ll ain’t mad enough.

 

[Sasha-1]

TikTok last week finalized a deal to hand over its U.S. operations to a majority American-owned venture, and things aren't exactly running smoothly for the new U.S. company so far.

Over the weekend, some U.S. TikTok users were unable to upload videos, which TikTok attributed to a power outage at a U.S. data center. TikTok users found they were unable to upload videos related to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Saturday shooting in Minneapolis, leading to concerns over censorship. Users saw their videos put into a review process, or experienced fewer than expected video views. Some users received messages that their posts related to the shooting had been flagged as "Ineligible for Recommendation," while others were temporarily suspended.

This evening, TikTok said that it is still working to resolve the infrastructure issue, which apparently caused a "cascading systems failure" leading to a long list of bugs. TikTok users may see slower load times, timed-out requests, and 0 views or likes on videos.

The ongoing outage and the accompanying censorship fears have caused some TikTok users to abandon the platform for UpScrolled, an alternative video sharing social platform. UpScrolled is currently the number eight free app in the U.S. App Store, but it was as high as number two earlier today.

Users have also expressed concerns about an updated TikTok privacy policy that suggests it collects "citizenship or immigration status" along with precise user location information, but the prior TikTok privacy policy also included that wording.

The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is 80.1 percent owned by U.S. and global investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The three companies each own 15 percent as managing investors, and other U.S. stakeholders include the Dell Family Office and affiliates of Susquehanna International Group. TikTok parent company ByteDance continues to hold a 19.9 percent stake.

A seven-member majority-American board of directors is operating the U.S. version of TikTok, with Adam Presser, TikTok's former global head of operations serving as CEO.

Under the agreement, the venture handles U.S. data protection, content moderation, and algorithm security. TikTok's recommendation algorithm is being retrained and updated on U.S. user data, and it has been secured in Oracle's cloud environment.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: TikTok Faces Outage and Censorship Concerns Days After U.S. Ownership Deal Closes

There is ZERO point is being on TikTok at this point. It's just X part 2. Twitter once great ruined by Elon, and now TikTok by a bunch of government losers controlled by the Israeli Nazis. No thanks. I won't be using either. If you want a more normal TikTok experience, using the Chinese Rednote app. American media has been taken over by whatever you wish to call this NEW government. Disgusting.

 

[Sasha-1]

This administration, through its lapdog Bondi and the gestapo tactics of ICE/CPB, are terrorizing and killing US citizens.

Forgive me if I don’t care about the death of TikTok at the hands of the same draft-dodger in chief. (Where was this energy as the far right gobbled up regional news outlets and threatened colleges and universities by withholding funds?

Honestly… what did people expect? That he was fighting to SAVE TikTok in the US due to his altruistic nature?

Even after everything you have seen in just the 1st year of his 2nd term, ya’ll ain’t mad enough.

It’s tolerable as long as it doesn’t directly affect you or those close to you. You keep saying “it can’t get any worse and he only has a couple of years left”… but what if this is all a smokescreen so he can stay in office? (He tried it before) He has shown zero respect for the constitution so don’t quote term limits to me.

Again, ya’ll ain’t mad enough.

You ain't wrong.

 

[mansplains]

There is ZERO point is being on TikTok at this point. It's just X part 2. Twitter once great ruined by Elon, and now TikTok by a bunch of government losers controlled by the Israeli Nazis. No thanks. I won't be using either. If you want a more normal TikTok experience, using the Chinese Rednote app. American media has been taken over by whatever you wish to call this NEW government. Disgusting.

What’s an Israeli Nazi?

 

[NewOldStock]

NSA had trouble routing traffic.

 

[Sasha-1]

'Censorship concerns'

View attachment 2599353

Ya think?

Nice soft landing there, MacRumors. If you decide to crawl up Trump's descending colon as well, give Tim Cook our regards.

Even if this is a glitch, gee, what a coincidence. Looks like the new owners of TikTok got their marching orders from the Pedo-In-Chief, or, at best, the Pedo-Protector-In-Chief.

I am sure that this 'outage' was giving them time to MAGAify the algorithm where up is down, wrong is right, legit and proven traitors are somehow patriots, and the worst humans are 'religious' as they worship evil alt-Jesus since the one that the rest of the world knows, whether you're religious or not, was a woke, liberal, hippie, Jew. So yeah, they must've had those servers working overtime converting the algorithms for those living on Earth 2.

The bottom line is, TikTok is now state-run, like, really state-run. These are not false accusations like the ones from the painfully gullible and ignorant MAGA mouth-breathers before Twitter was destroyed by the country's biggest Welfare Queen and actual speech suppressor.

PSA: I don't interact or argue with MAGA cultists. It's like trying to reason with poorly programmed robots that just know how to repeat debunked talking points from actual fake news outlets.

Thread happily ignored.

Couldn't agree more. If your post gets deleted, or if you get censored in any way, that will be my LAST day on MacRumors. PERIOD.

 

[Sasha-1]

What’s an Israeli Nazi?

If you have to ask...

 

[mansplains]

If you have to ask...

Call me crazy, but I’m fairly sure one killed the other..?

 

[VisceralRealist]

It's a tall order to make TikTok, arguably the most brain-rotting of all social media, way worse, but leave it to this government to pull it off. 🙄

 

[Sasha-1]

Call me crazy, but I’m fairly sure one killed the other..?

The IDF are Israeli Nazis for the disgusting murder of Palestinians. It is Israel which turned up the heat on their bought off "elected officials" to stop TikTok from allowing us to freely discuss what is going on in Palestine. Clear enough?