TikTok is also under pressure on the technical and business side, with users reporting outages and glitchy performance in the U.S. just days after a deal to put the app under a new majority‑American ownership structure was finalized. According to reporting in outlets like The National, some users saw their For You feeds stall or fail to load altogether, prompting fresh speculation about whether infrastructure changes tied to the deal are already underway. The company has said little publicly beyond standard language about resolving “technical issues.”
The disruption lands in the middle of a broader backlash wave, where creators are already anxious about potential changes to the algorithm, content policies and data‑storage rules under the new ownership. A detailed breakdown in Forbes notes that some U.S. lawmakers still want stricter limits on how TikTok operates, even after the deal, while creators fear that political pressure could translate into more aggressive moderation or reduced reach. Many full‑time TikTokers are now openly talking about diversifying to YouTube Shorts and Reels as insurance.
For everyday users, the outage was a reminder of how dependent a lot of online culture has become on a single app’s discovery engine. When feeds went dark, people immediately shifted to X, Instagram and Reddit to swap screenshots and theories, effectively turning the glitch into another piece of TikTok discourse. Some saw it as a preview of what a more tightly regulated or even partially geo‑fenced version of the app might feel like day to day.
In the shorter term, TikTok’s challenge is to reassure both regulators and power users that it can keep the app stable while it rewires its corporate and technical setup for the U.S. market. Longer term, the backlash is forcing a conversation about how much control any one app should have over what young people see and how creators get paid. Whether TikTok manages to hold onto its central place in youth culture or cedes ground to rivals will depend on how it navigates this mix of political scrutiny, user frustration and competitive pressure.