After a shaky start, TikTok’s U.S. joint venture lands on its feet
2026-02-16 03:30:36
TikTok Inc. tag In front of the building on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 in Culver City, California.
Kayla Bartkowski | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
The TikTok joint venture in the US appears to have weathered a turbulent rollout with minimal change in user numbers, early on Novels The exodus of users due to service outages and censorship concerns now appears to be exaggerated, according to new figures.
Survey data from Market Information Company Sensor tower Turns out it is though Increase in deletions after advertisement After the US TikTok joint venture ended on January 23, TikTok’s average number of daily active users in the United States remained at about 95% of its users compared to the week of January 19-25.
The joint venture – officially the TikTok USDS Joint Venture – was created in accordance with the decisions of the US President Donald Trump‘s Executive order Forced divestment of TikTok in the US from Chinese parent company ByteDance.
While ByteDance retains a 19.9% stake in TikTok’s US operations after the agreement, oracleSilver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX each hold a 15% stake, with the remaining shares divided among several other companies.
Following the announcement, users were quick to express their displeasure with TikTok’s new ownership.
The deal has drawn scrutiny, with prominent figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raising concerns about nepotism over the involvement of Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder and chief technical officer.
After the joint venture announced that Ellison’s Oracle would “retrain, test and update its content recommendation algorithm on US user data,” speculation mounted online that TikTok would begin mining user data or promoting content supportive of Trump’s political positions.
These concerns escalated on January 25, as users claimed that TikTok was suppressing content critical of the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement processes, and censoring buzzwords like “Epstein” on the platform.
CNBC last month certain that messages containing the word “Epstein” resulted in an error message, but it was unable to independently verify the broader allegations of political censorship.
When asked about the issues, a spokesperson for the TikTok joint venture told CNBC in January that the platform does not prohibit sharing the name “Epstein” in messages and that it is investigating why some users, among others, are experiencing the issue.
CNBC reached out to the White House and TikTok for comment but did not receive a response upon publication.
Engagement metrics have not changed
Although TikTok attributed last month’s disruptions to power outages, the glitches “undoubtedly have an impact.”[ed] How and what content was provided, even without any intent or motive,” according to Jim Johnston, a partner at the law firm Davis+Gilbert LLP.
However, despite various user pledges to boycott the platform over apparent political repression, engagement metrics among US users suggest there have been little signs of a mass exodus.
The average daily time spent by US users on the platform has since returned to about 80 minutes, after falling to an average of 77 minutes during the week of reported unrest, according to Sensor Tower data.
Additionally, while deletions spiked after the reported disruptions, they diminished in the following week, suggesting a temporary increase rather than a sustained boycott of the app.
“It is plausible that the short-lived spike in observed uninstalls was due to trying to troubleshoot the app,” Abraham Youssef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, told CNBC, as the number of uninstalls followed by reinstalls on the same day rose more than 70% on January 25 compared to the previous day.
While Youssef acknowledges that the data suggests “a slight impact on overall usage” in the weeks since the joint venture was announced, there is no clear indication of a structural shift in user trends, as many sites touted as alternatives to TikTok are also struggling to maintain interest.
According to Sensor Tower, the number of new installations of UpScrolled – a social media platform provides Algorithm Free of automated systems that filter out content from some users and known as shadow bans – it rose about 770% from the previous week, with more than 955,000 new downloads in the US during the week of January 26 to February 1.
However, new downloads of UpScrolled dropped sharply by about 80% the following week, bringing in only about 191,000 new users. By comparison, TikTok recorded 870,000 downloads during the week of January 26 to February 1, and about 800,000 the following week.
Likewise, new downloads of other alternative platforms such as Skylight Social and Red Note respectively decreased by 96% and 33% week-on-week compared to the week of January 26.
Weak evidence of mass migration
Sensor Tower user data seems to essentially indicate that contrary to anecdotal claims, users have been largely unable to identify tangible changes in TikTok’s US operations, or at least, not enough to meaningfully change user sentiment.
“The idea of a mass exodus from TikTok now seems overblown,” Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester, told CNBC. “Anecdotally, most users say the app feels much the same — the algorithm hasn’t changed appreciably, and the experience is still strong.”
While some US users may have noticed changes in the operation of their TikTok algorithms, “some changes in content suggestions are bound to occur simply because of the changing data set,” according to Johnston, referring to the joint project’s announcement to retrain the algorithm on US data.
But while analysts have been unable to find evidence that TikTok’s new American owners have designed the platform to their advantage, this is not a foregone conclusion.
According to Johnston, there are at least three notable changes in TikTok’s new terms of use, including the platform’s ability to collect precise location data from enabled devices, its collection of data about interactions with AI tools on the app and its explicit integration with ad networks.
Although there is no conclusive evidence that this is happening, it remains technically possible to tweak TikTok’s algorithm to boost or reduce the impact of certain types of content on recommendations, Johnston said.
Chickering adds that under its new owners, TikTok has more control over what appears on US feeds, but that control, according to Chickering, is where TikTok’s opportunity — and risk — lies.
“If moderation starts to feel politically biased or misinformation isn’t adequately addressed, the platform could face backlash from users and advertisers alike,” Chickering said. “We’ve seen this before: Twitter’s shift to X is a recent reminder of how quickly trust can erode.”
However, for now, the dissatisfaction of American TikTok users, which marred the first few weeks under new ownership, appears to have largely subsided.
As Chickering points out, “We’ve seen time and time again that if a product is successful, users tend to stay regardless of who owns it.”
— CNBC’s Dylan Potts contributed to this report.
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