TikTok has largely recovered from a small drop in active users in the days after its ownership change, when a group of American investors took control of the video app’s operations in the United States. The drop, though brief, benefited competing video apps like UpScrolled and Skylight Social, which saw rapid user adoption as some looked for TikTok alternatives.
According to estimates by the digital market intelligence company Similar WebTikTok saw usage drop to the range of 86-88 million daily active users in the US immediately after the ownership change. This compares to a typical average of 92 million daily active users.
The app rebounded to more than 90 million daily active users, indicating that many who left TikTok have since returned.
As TikTok saw a slight decline in usage, alternative video sharing apps UpScrolled and Skylight Social began to grow rapidly. Although only a fraction of TikTok’s size, UpScrolled surpassed 138,500 daily active users at its peak on January 28. now it has dropped back to 68,000.
Meanwhile, Skylight Social reached 81,200 daily active users, according to Similarweb estimates, and has since dropped to 56,300 daily active users. Overall, Skylight Social saw its user signups grow to 380,000 at the end of January, the company told TechCrunch.
The decline in TikTok usage, which prompted some to try the new apps, was not directly due to the change in ownership, but rather to how users feared it would affect their TikTok experience. There were growing concerns about TikTok’s updated privacy policywhich gave the app permission to track users’ exact GPS location. (This plugin could be related to TikTok tests a “Nearby” stream. to show users videos from local creators, but was added to the policy alongside the ownership change, leading to user backlash over privacy concerns.)
In re-reading the privacy policy, some users also discovered disturbing language, such as how TikTok said it may collect users’ “immigration status,” among other personal data. However, this turned out to be a report that was included because of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which requires businesses to notify consumers if they collect certain sensitive data. TikTok does – in the sense that anything someone shares on the platform in their video content technically becomes part of the platform, so it requires disclosure.
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Additionally, TikTok experienced an unfortunately timed, multi-day data center outage that caused the app to malfunction, sometimes breaking search, likes, and comments, causing video errors, algorithm disruption, and in-app chat issues. Users believed that these glitches meant that TikTok was now censoring their content, which sent them looking for alternatives.
The company was announced Sunday afternoon, the data center outage was resolved, leading to a winter storm power outage.
As users came to terms with the new terms and conditions and outage issues were resolved, users returned to the platform, Similarweb data shows. However, there is still hope for new entrants as the company notes that TikTok usage is slowly declining in the latter part of 2025, when usage peaked at 100 million daily active users from July to October 2025, compared to the 90+ million seen now.
