Fears of a world without TikTok spread like wildfire today on every social media site that isn’t TikTok after the popular video app experienced widespread glitches and server issues.
The website Down Detector showed issues across the United States and in parts of Europe, with many users saying their like counts had dropped to zero. Some of the app’s Discover features were also unavailable as of Thursday afternoon.
TikTok is aware of the issues and said it was “working quickly” to fix them. Reached for comment, a TikTok spokesperson referred Fast Company to the following tweet:
Hi TikTok community! We’re aware that some users are experiencing app issues – working to quickly fix things, and we’ll share updates here!
— TikTokSupport (@TikTokSupport) July 9, 2020
The glitches took place just days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is “looking at” banning TikTok, whose China-based parent company, ByteDance, is the focus of increasing scrutiny from government regulators and privacy advocates.
TikTok, along with dozens of other China-based apps, was banned in India recently over what officials said were national security concerns. The action was taken shortly after a fatal clash along the disputed India-China border.
TikTok has enjoyed breakneck growth during the coronavirus pandemic and is among the most downloaded apps.
Update, Thursday:
A TikTok spokesperson released the following statement:
“Earlier today, some of our users experienced app issues around notifications, the display of likes and view counts, and trouble loading videos on some pages of the app. The issues appear to have been caused by higher traffic than normal on our servers in Virginia, causing temporary service disruptions. We’ve resolved the problem and are investigating the cause, and will share updates as they become available.”
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