| How storms, Alex Pretti and Trump led TikTok to disaster |
| Nearly two weeks ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalized citizen. Ever since, the video app has been fighting for its life. It endured a major outage that stifled users’ ability to upload videos, which fueled a fierce user backlash over perceived censorship. Now it’s facing an ascendant competitor and an inquiry by the California governor.TikTok’s calamitous emigration began on 22 January when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalized a deal to sell the app to a group of US investors, among them the business software giant Oracle. The day after the deal closed, its new owners altered its privacy policy to permit more extensive data collection.During the weekend that followed, the US weathered a fearsome winter storm and the killing of an American citizen by federal immigration agents. Both knocked TikTok off its feet.Winter Storm Fern crippled multiple Oracle datacenters that TikTok relies on. The app suffered severe outages as a result. Many users said they were unable to upload videos. Others said their videos received zero views despite significant followings. Many of those same users cried censorship as they tried to express their outrage over Alex Pretti’s death via TikTok and found they could not. Prominent personalities said they would leave the app.After days of outcry, TikTok issued a statement ascribing the problems to the snow, ice and cold. That did not stop California governor Gavin Newsom from announcing the next day that his office would investigate the app’s alleged suppression of content critical of Donald Trump.TikTok’s late attribution of blame did little to assuage public criticism. The exodus has propelled a new competitor, Upscrolled, which promises less censorship than TikTok, to the top spot in the US Apple App Store and the third spot in the Google Play Store. Upscrolled’s founder said in a conversation at the Web Summit Qatar that the app now boasts more than 2.5m users. The Guardian |
TikTok under US ownership
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One response to “TikTok under US ownership”
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Fascism or Communism. Personally, I trust the Chinese more than the current U.S. Administration. It is time for the E.U. to step in now creating apps to replace American ones. Canada already has KCUNAC
https://kcunac.com/welcome
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