Did you find yourself here because you’re Googling “TikTok problems?” As in, you’re seeing weird recommendations, old videos, and such in your feed? Yeah, you’re in thick company, as the app has been down or malfunctioning for many people since January 25, 2026.
It seems to be weather-related, as TikTok said a data center power outage has messed up its algorithm, according to Business Insider. And though fewer people are reporting problems with TikTok by this afternoon than yesterday, it seems that plenty are still finding issues with it.
TikTok’s New U.S.-Owned Operation Is Off to a Rocky Start
I’ll catch you up: The U.S. became so worried about TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, sucking up American TikTokkers’ user data over the past few years that the government said it would ban the TikTok app if ByteDance didn’t sell its American operations to an approved owner.
After many deadlines were pushed back again and again, ByteDance and the U.S. finally reached a deal in September 2025. It takes a bit of time for a deal to translate into operational turnover, so this past week was the first under the new ownership.
And what a week in which to take over one of the most heavily used apps in the US. A major winter storm swept across most of the country this weekend, which apparently played havoc with TikTok’s American servers, knocking a data center offline, which in turn has screwed up people’s recommendation algorithms. That’s why you’re seeing old videos in your feed.
“Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate,” TikTok’s account posted on X.com on the morning of Monday, January 26, 2026. “We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”
There’s no word yet on how long it’ll last. Trial by fire for TikTok’s new owners, it seems.
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