TikTok has denied accusations that it is suppressing political content in the United States, saying a wave of glitches that disrupted posts, messages and video feeds was caused by a power failure at one of its data centres, not intentional interference.
The problems began days after the video platform started operating under a new U.S.-led joint venture, created to keep the app running after months of stress on its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Almost immediately, users complained that the app was unstable. Videos stalled. Feeds repeated old clips. Engagement figures dropped to zero for some creators.
Then came the more serious allegation, censorship.
Across TikTok, X and other platforms, users claimed that content critical of President Donald Trump or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was being limited. Others said direct messages containing the word “Epstein” would not send at all.
There’s been screenshots of the error message and CNBC confirmed that messages containing the word “Epstein” triggered a warning on TikTok’s messaging system, although it said it could not independently prove wider political suppression.
The error message shown to users read: “This message may be in violation of our Community Guidelines, and has not been sent to protect our community.”
TikTok says this is not policy. A spokesperson for the U.S. joint venture told CNBC that the platform does not block the name “Epstein” and is investigating why some users are affected.
The sensitivity around the TikTok outage is obvious. Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, is still at the centre of renewed public attention as the U.S. Department of Justice continues to release documents linked to its investigations, while stopping short of publishing the full set of so-called Epstein files.
What pushed the issue beyond social media chatter was the reaction from California.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office said it had received complaints of suppressed content and claimed it had confirmed some cases.
In a post on X, his press office stated: “Our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump.”
It added: “[Gavin] Newsom is launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law.”
No evidence was released to back this up. Still, the comments gave official weight to what had, until then, been largely user-driven outrage.
One of the viral posts came from freelance journalist David Leavitt, who shared screenshots showing his videos labelled “Ineligible for Recommendation”. He argued that anti-Trump and anti-ICE content was being quietly sidelined.
ICE is currently involved in a controversial enforcement operation in Minneapolis. The fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens during federal actions has triggered protests and political discuss. Videos from the city have circulated widely online, making social media a key battleground for public opinion.
TikTok says that content from Minnesota was not blocked. When asked directly about ICE-related accusations, a spokesperson said videos of the incident had been available on the platform since Saturday.
TikTok U.S. operation admitted that a power outage at a data centre caused what it described as a “cascading systems failure”. In a post on X, the company said: “While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we’ve been working to resolve with our data center partner.”
Users were warned to expect slow load times, timeouts when posting, and misleading engagement figures. TikTok said creators seeing zero views or likes were facing a display error, not an actual loss of data.
The scale of the TikTok outage was hard to ignore. Downdetector recorded more than 615,000 reports in a single weekend in January 2026. At one point, 36,000 complaints were logged in just 15 minutes. Most reports cited app crashes, login failures, broken feeds and uploads stuck in review.
Some users noticed something else. Certain videos from UK outlets, including the BBC and The Guardian, were visible abroad but unavailable to U.S. accounts. That discovery led to suspicion that the algorithm itself had changed under new ownership.
After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s American business or face a ban, negotiations accelerated.
Last week, TikTok confirmed the creation of a new joint venture to run its U.S. app. ByteDance now holds 19.9%, while U.S. and global investors control 80.1%.
Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX each own 15%. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a long-time Trump ally, had been floated by the president as a potential buyer as far back as early last year. MGX has previously been involved in Trump-era deals through its links to U.S.-backed technology projects.
Soon after the deal was announced, U.S. users were asked to accept an updated privacy policy, adding to the sense that the ground had shifted beneath their feet.
For now, TikTok says the worst is over, the network is back online, the outage is being fixed, and the company rejects claims of political censorship.
But the coincidence of mass outages, blocked messages, a heated election climate and a forced ownership change has left many unconvinced.
