JAKARTA - Technology giant Oracle has provided an official clarification regarding the service disruption experienced by TikTok users in the United States recently. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert stated that the technical problem was purely caused by a temporary power outage due to extreme weather factors in one of their data centers.
This explanation emerged in response to growing speculation, including California Governor Gavin Newsom's statement earlier linking the disruption to alleged suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
In an official statement, Egbert explained that the winter storm that hit most of the United States over the weekend had a direct impact on the data center infrastructure serving TikTok.
Problems felt by users, ranging from difficulty loading applications to failure to upload new content, are the technical impact after the power outage. Currently, Oracle and the TikTok technical team are reportedly working intensively to restore all system functions to normal.
This technical tension shifted to the political realm after Governor Gavin Newsom announced that his office was conducting a review to determine whether TikTok's content moderation practices violated state law.
These concerns emerged after ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, completed a joint venture agreement called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. This new entity is majority owned by US investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX firm, as a strategic move to avoid blocking the application in the US region.
The TikTok USDS Joint Venture itself has strongly denied the practice of censorship or manipulation of algorithms against certain political content. They emphasized that the inconvenience experienced by more than 200 million users in the United States is purely a data center infrastructure problem.
Although significant progress in system recovery has been made, they acknowledged that some users may still experience minor technical difficulties until the data synchronization process is completely completed.
The agreement to form a joint venture is a milestone for TikTok after years of being caught up in a dispute with the US government over national security risks and data privacy. President Donald Trump, who praised the deal, had previously also acknowledged that the short video platform had a significant role in his victory in the 2024 election through its wide reach to young voters.
Now, with its new ownership structure, TikTok is trying to prove its commitment to technical transparency amid tight scrutiny from state and federal authorities.
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