TikTok users are deleting the app after U.S. joint venture
TikTok users have been deleting the app at a higher rate since the company announced that its US operations would be involved in a new joint venture.
The daily average of US users deleting the TikTok app has increased by almost 150% in the last five days Market intelligence firm compared to previous three months Sensor Tower he told CNBC.
Last Thursday, TikTok in question had formed a joint venture so that the video-sharing app would continue to operate in the US under new American leadership. The company has named TikTok’s former chief operating officer Adam Presser as CEO of the joint venture.
Some users took to social media to express skepticism about the new joint venture after being asked to accept an updated agreement. privacy policy on Thursday.
Several social media posts noted the new policy’s language explaining the types of data TikTok may collect; this includes sensitive information such as “your race or ethnicity,” as well as “your sex life or sexual orientation, transgender or non-binary status, citizenship or immigration status, or financial information.”
Despite the uproar on social media, this language does not appear to be new. One archived The version of the policy dated August 2024 also contains the same provisions.
These concerns appear to have weighed on sentiment around the app following the announcement of the joint venture and have contributed to a surge in removals over the past few days.
“If I can delete my biggest platform because deal terms and censorship are out of control, so can you!” creator Dre Ronayne sent on microblogging service Threads Meta. Ronayne said he had nearly 400,000 followers on TikTok before deleting his account on Sunday.
Other creators have also reported problems sending content to the app, with users complaining of interruptions and video uploads failing.
TikTok creator Nadya Okamoto, who has more than 4 million followers, told CNBC that the social media company did not explain to its creators what the joint venture meant for them.
“That’s why there’s so much paranoia, because we’re all looking at this platform and we don’t know what it is,” he said.
Okamoto told CNBC that he’s been experiencing problems with the app for the past few days and hasn’t been able to upload videos for about 24 hours. He continues to share his content on Instagram during the uncertainty and Google’s on YouTube.
“Is this all coincidence or censorship on the internet and what does that look like?” There’s a lot of talk about it. Okamoto said. “It’s very scary when everything happens at once.”
An X account associated with the TikTok joint venture said on Monday that the service issue was caused by a power outage at a US data center.
“We are working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We are sorry for this outage and hope to resolve the issue soon,” the account said. wrote.
However, the increase in removals did not translate into a meaningful decrease in US usage.
TikTok’s active user levels in the US remained relatively stable compared to the previous week, according to Sensor Tower.
But rival apps have seen a surge in interest. Sensor Tower data shows US downloads for UpScrolled are up more than tenfold compared to the previous week, while Skylight Social is up 919% and Chinese-owned Rednote is up 53% week over week.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
