TikTok’s post-takeover reality is being defined less by cap tables and more by whether creators can publish, get recommended, and trust what the platform tells them when views collapse to zero.
TikTok’s US operations now sit in TikTok USDS Joint Venture, described as over 80% controlled by American investors and firms including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, with ByteDance retaining a 19.9% minority stake.
That structural change landed alongside viral claims that TikTok became “state-controlled media,” including allegations that reach collapsed for accounts posting Trump-critical or ICE-critical content, and that moderation tightened immediately after the ownership transition.
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TikTok USDS Joint Venture said it has been working “since yesterday” to restore services after a power outage at a US data center affected TikTok and other affiliate apps it operates, while it works with its data center partner to stabilize service.
CNN and the Democratic Party’s TikTok pages became early case studies in the post-takeover trust fight, with users circulating side-by-side performance snapshots and alleging suppression after the US ownership restructuring. Several online posts claimed CNN’s TikTok account was “clearly being suppressed” based on “today vs earlier this week” view drops, while others said the Democrats’ official uploads fell from millions of views per post to zero on the latest videos.
A subsequent update said the network was recovered, but the outage triggered a cascading systems failure that can produce “multiple bugs,” slower load times, and timed-out requests when posting. It added creators may temporarily see “0” views or likes and missing earnings due to a display error from server timeouts, while “actual data and engagement are safe.”
Trump, Epstein, and ICE
Users reported trouble posting and searching, then layered allegations of suppression on top of those failures, with a Minneapolis incident becoming the focal point: TikTok users said videos about the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, were delayed or drew unusually low view counts amid broader platform issues.
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Examples cited include Finneas O’Connell’s video reaching 42,000 views as of Monday morning, versus more than 10 times that number for many of his other videos, and a creator with 35,700 followers reporting zero views on ICE-critical uploads while a pinned post sat at 1.1 million views.
TikTok’s visible enforcement tooling also surfaced in complaints. A freelance writer said two of three videos posted the day after ownership changed received an “ineligible for recommendation” label, limiting discovery to direct links or profile visits.
Separate from feed reach, multiple posts claimed any mention of “Epstein” in DMs was not permitted after the takeover, and others said “Epstein” was being censored more broadly, framing the change as political control rather than safety policy.
Critics also circulated TikTok privacy-policy language stating it may collect sensitive personal information as defined by applicable state laws, including citizenship or immigration status, status as transgender or nonbinary, and other sensitive categories, reinforcing perceptions that the post-deal TikTok is expanding what it can ingest.
Alternatives
The backlash narrative is already being monetized by alternatives. UpScrolled was described as surging to #2 in the US and also cited as reaching 13th place on the US Play Store with hundreds of thousands of downloads, while another alternative, Monnett, was promoted as a Europe-launched TikTok replacement.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is framing the TikTok US ownership reset as a concentrated media-power problem, arguing that Oracle chief Larry Ellison would “control the TikTok algorithm” and pairs that claim with a list of legacy and streaming assets he says Ellison also controls, using the bundle to make a single point: distribution plus algorithmic ranking equals political leverage at scale.
“This is what oligarchy looks like,” he claims.
It is worthy to note, however, that Oracle is just one of the firms included in the venture, albeit it is the largest.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is taking the claim set in the opposite direction: from rhetoric to enforcement risk. He says it’s “time to investigate” and is launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.
The consideration paid to ByteDance for the US business was not disclosed. Vice President JD Vance said in September that the deal would value the US unit at roughly $14 billion.
Separately, it remains unclear what negotiations concluded around TikTok’s algorithm, which has been described as the key point of contention between the US and Chinese governments and the factor that derailed previous deal efforts.
Most recent reporting around the US restructuring cites about 200 million TikTok users in the country.
Information for this story was found via The Washington Post and the sources and companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to the organizations discussed. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
