TikTok is facing a surge in app deletions in the United States following its announcement that its U.S. operations will be run under a new joint venture, a development that appears to have unsettled a segment of its user base even as overall engagement remains largely intact.
According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the daily average of U.S. users deleting TikTok has jumped by nearly 150% over the past five days compared with the average seen over the previous three months. The spike followed TikTok’s disclosure last Thursday that it had created a joint venture designed to keep the video-sharing platform operating in the U.S. under new American leadership, with Adam Presser, previously TikTok’s head of operations, named as chief executive of the entity.
The announcement, meant to signal stability amid long-running scrutiny from Washington, instead triggered a wave of skepticism among users, particularly creators who rely on the platform for reach and income. Many were prompted the same day to agree to an updated privacy policy, which quickly became a flashpoint on social media.
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Posts circulating on platforms such as Threads and X highlighted sections of the policy describing categories of data TikTok may collect, including sensitive information such as racial or ethnic origin, sexual life or sexual orientation, transgender or nonbinary status, citizenship or immigration status, and financial information. While those provisions sparked alarm, archived versions of TikTok’s privacy policy show that the same language was already present as far back as August 2024, suggesting the concerns were driven more by timing and mistrust than by any substantive policy change.
Even so, the combination of the joint venture announcement and renewed attention on data practices appears to have weighed heavily on user sentiment.
“If I can delete my biggest platform because their terms of agreement and censorship have gotten out of control, so can you,” creator Dre Ronayne wrote on Threads after deleting her TikTok account on Sunday.
Ronayne said she had nearly 400,000 followers on the app before leaving, underscoring the symbolic impact of high-profile departures even if they do not immediately dent overall usage.
Compounding the unease, some creators reported technical problems in the days following the announcement. Users complained of outages, failed uploads, and disruptions that prevented videos from posting. Nadya Okamoto, a TikTok creator with more than 4 million followers, told CNBC that the company has not clearly communicated what the new joint venture means for creators, leaving many in the dark.
“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,” Okamoto said.
She added that she was unable to upload videos for roughly 24 hours and has continued posting content on rival platforms such as Instagram and Google-owned YouTube as a hedge against further disruption.
Online, speculation has swirled over whether the service issues, policy changes, and joint venture rollout are connected.
“For everything to be happening at once, it is very scary,” Okamoto said, echoing a broader concern among creators that moderation or censorship dynamics could shift under the new structure.
TikTok has sought to tamp down those fears. An X account associated with the joint venture said on Monday that the service disruptions were caused by a power outage at a U.S. data center.
“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 said.
Despite the surge in uninstalls, Sensor Tower data indicates that TikTok’s active user levels in the U.S. have remained relatively flat compared with the previous week, suggesting that while a vocal subset of users is leaving, the platform’s core audience has not yet followed suit. That dynamic points to a growing gap between sentiment and behavior: distrust and frustration are rising, but not at a scale that has materially dented daily usage.
Rival platforms, however, are already benefiting from the moment. Sensor Tower data shows that U.S. downloads of UpScrolled increased more than tenfold week over week, while Skylight Social surged 919% and Chinese-owned Rednote climbed 53%. The gains, though from relatively small bases, highlight how periods of uncertainty around TikTok can quickly redirect attention toward alternative social apps.
The episode underscores the fragile trust TikTok continues to navigate in the U.S., where concerns about data governance, transparency, and political oversight have lingered for years. While the joint venture was designed to address regulatory pressure and reassure policymakers, the immediate user response suggests that clarity for regulators does not automatically translate into confidence for creators and everyday users.
TikTok’s chance to stabilize sentiment will likely depend less on structural changes at the corporate level and more on how clearly and credibly it communicates with the millions of users.