<figure id="attachment_3165284" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3165284" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-3165284 size-full" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/8449eca5-tiktok-1.jpg" alt="TikTok" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3165284" class="wp-caption-text">TikTok&#8217;s Chinese owner, ByteDance, has finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC to secure US data. (Reuters pic)</figcaption></figure>
WASHINGTON: Oracle said yesterday issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data centre, after California governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
&#8220;Over the weekend, an Oracle data centre experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,&#8221; Oracle spokesman Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
&#8220;The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,&#8221; Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok&#8217;s content moderation practices violated state law.
&#8220;Following TikTok&#8217;s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports &#8211; and independently confirmed instances &#8211; of suppressed content critical of President Trump,&#8221; Newsom&#8217;s office had said.
TikTok&#8217;s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans.
The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying &#8220;it would be inaccurate to report that this (issues faced by US users) is anything but the technical issues we&#8217;ve transparently confirmed.&#8221;
Each of the joint venture&#8217;s three managing investors &#8211; cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX &#8211; will hold a stake of 15%.
The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1% of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9%.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it &#8220;made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data centre partner&#8221; but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week&#8217;s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington&#8217;s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former president Joe Biden.

MatchPoint Times

Oracle says data centre outage causing issues for US TikTok users

Before Oracle’s statement, California governor Gavin Newsom linked the issue to the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.

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