Competing social media apps are seeing a surge in downloads as uncertainty swirls around TikTok’s future in the United States. According to Sensor Tower, U.S. downloads of alternative platforms rose sharply over the past week, with UpScrolled jumping more than tenfold, Skylight Social increasing 919%, and Chinese-owned Rednote climbing 53% week over week.
Despite this shift, TikTok’s overall U.S. usage has remained relatively steady. Sensor Tower said active user levels in the country have stayed largely flat compared with the previous week, suggesting that while some users are leaving, many remain engaged with the platform.
The rise in interest toward rival apps comes as TikTok users report technical issues and growing unease following the company’s announcement of a new U.S. joint venture. Several creators have complained about outages and problems uploading videos. An X account linked to the TikTok joint venture said Monday that a power outage at a U.S. data center caused service disruptions. “We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon,” the account wrote.
Creators have also voiced frustration over a lack of communication. Nadya Okamoto, a TikTok creator with more than 4 million followers, told CNBC that the company has not clearly explained how the joint venture affects creators. “That’s why there is so much paranoia, because we’re all kind of looking at this platform and we just don’t know what’s happening,” she said. Okamoto added that she was unable to upload videos for roughly 24 hours and has continued posting on Instagram and YouTube. “For everything to be happening at once, it is very scary,” she said.
The unease has fueled a spike in app deletions. Sensor Tower said the daily average of U.S. users uninstalling TikTok has risen nearly 150% over the past five days compared with the prior three months.
That increase followed TikTok’s announcement last Thursday that it had formed a joint venture to keep the app operating in the U.S. under new American leadership. The company named Adam Presser, formerly its head of operations, as chief executive of the joint venture.
Some users reacted after being prompted to agree to an updated privacy policy. Social media posts highlighted language describing data TikTok may collect, including “your racial or ethnic origin” and “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status, or financial information.” However, archived versions of the policy from August 2024 show that the same wording was already included.
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