Overview
- Similarweb estimates show daily active users fell to 86–88 million around the ownership transition and have since climbed back above 90 million, after trending down from a 2025 peak near 100 million.
- A multi-day outage at Oracle-managed infrastructure, attributed to a winter storm, broke search, likes, comments, video playback, the algorithm, and chat until TikTok said service was restored Sunday.
- An updated U.S. privacy policy drew scrutiny for precise GPS tracking permissions and a line about collecting “immigration status,” which outlets note reflects CCPA disclosure requirements.
- Rivals saw brief bumps: UpScrolled peaked at about 138,500 daily active users on January 28 before dropping to 68,000, and Skylight Social hit roughly 81,200 before easing to 56,300 as sign-ups reached 380,000.
- California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said it confirmed instances of content suppression during the disruption, a claim TikTok disputes as it points to storm-driven technical failures.