By Elke Porter | WBN Ai | January 27, 2026
Subscription to WBN and being a Writer is FREE!

VANCOUVER, BC — TikTok users across North America reported widespread technical disruptions over the weekend, marking the first major service issues since the social media platform's controversial ownership transfer to U.S. investors five days ago.

Thousands of users flooded online forums with complaints about videos stuck in review, frozen feeds and view counts inexplicably dropping to zero. The platform attributed the outages to a power failure at one of its U.S. data centres, which triggered what the company described as a "cascading systems failure."

The technical problems come as TikTok undergoes its most dramatic transformation since launching in 2016. On Jan. 22, Oracle Corp., Silver Lake Partners and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX finalized their acquisition of an 80 per cent stake in the newly formed TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, leaving Chinese parent company ByteDance with a minority 19.9 per cent holding.

While TikTok insisted the weekend's glitches were unrelated to the ownership change, users and industry observers have questioned whether the transition played a role in the system instability.

"These are exactly the kinds of problems you'd expect during a major infrastructure migration," said Sarah Chen, a Vancouver-based social media consultant who works with content creators. "When you're moving data centres and changing system architectures, things break."

Algorithm changes raise concerns

Under terms of the sale agreement, TikTok's U.S. operations must completely rebuild their content recommendation system using only American user data, abandoning the global dataset that ByteDance previously controlled.

The change has sparked anxiety among content creators who have spent years decoding TikTok's famously opaque algorithm. Vancouver creator Emma Rodriguez, who has built a following of 2.3 million through cooking videos, said the uncertainty is affecting her business planning.

"My entire income depends on the algorithm showing my videos to the right people," Rodriguez said. "If that changes fundamentally, I could lose everything I've built."

TikTok has not provided a timeline for when the algorithmic overhaul will be complete, saying only that the process will involve "retraining, testing and updating" the recommendation system.

Canadian creators still shut out of rewards program

Despite hopes that the ownership change might expand monetization opportunities, Canadian content creators remain excluded from TikTok's Creator Rewards Program.

The program, which allows qualifying creators to earn money directly from video views, is currently available only in seven countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France and Brazil.

Canadian creators can still generate income through brand partnerships, TikTok Shop affiliate commissions and virtual gifts during livestreams, but these indirect methods typically generate less revenue than the Creator Rewards Program.

AI content rules strictly enforced

Some B.C. creators have also reported videos being muted or removed for violating the platform's AI disclosure policies, which require users to label any content containing AI-generated realistic imagery, audio or video.

North Vancouver resident James Park said his recent video, which used TikTok's own AI filters, was flagged for policy violations and had its audio removed.

"I used their own built-in AI tools, and they still said I broke the rules," Park said. "The guidelines aren't clear about when you need to add the label."

TikTok said it is increasing enforcement of AI labelling requirements after user surveys showed concern about unlabelled synthetic content. The company said removal rates for unlabelled AI content have risen significantly in recent months as the policy becomes more strictly applied.

Elke Porter at:
Westcoast German Media
LinkedIn: Elke Porter or
WhatsApp:  +1 604 828 8788.
Public Relations. Communications. Education

Let’s bring your story to life — contact me for books, articles, blogs, and bold public relations ideas that make an impact

TAGS: #TikTok Glitch #Oracle TikTok #TikTok Algorithm #Creator Rewards #TikTok Update #Social Media News #WBN AI #Elke Porter

Share this article
The link has been copied!