TikTok Seemingly Recovers U.S. Usage After Brief Dip

4th February 2026 Staff Writer

TikTok has largely regained its U.S. daily active user base after a temporary decline in late January 2026, following the platform’s transition to a new U.S.-based ownership structure. According to Similarweb estimates, TikTok’s U.S. daily active users fell to 86–88 million immediately after the change, compared with a typical average of 92 million. The platform has since returned to more than 90 million daily actives, indicating most users who briefly left have returned.

The brief usage drop benefited smaller competitors. UpScrolled peaked at 138,500 daily actives on January 28 before falling to 68,000, while Skylight Social reached 81,200 before declining to 56,300. Skylight reported sign-ups climbing to 380,000 by late January, capitalizing on user concerns about TikTok’s future direction.

The dip was not caused by the ownership change itsel – Meta, Silver Lake, MGX, and other U.S. investors took majority control of TikTok’s U.S. operations in January, with ByteDance retaining a minority stake – but rather by user fears and technical issues. Many reacted to a newly visible privacy policy clause allowing precise GPS tracking (linked to tests of a “Nearby” feed for local content) and a reference to collecting “immigration status” (a required disclosure under California’s CCPA for sensitive data shared in videos).

Compounding the unease was a multi-day U.S. data center outage caused by a winter storm, which disrupted search, likes, comments, video playback, the algorithm, and in-app chat. Some users interpreted the glitches as censorship, prompting them to explore alternatives. TikTok has confirmed that the outage was fully resolved.

Similarweb notes that while TikTok has recovered, U.S. usage has shown a gradual decline since peaking at 100 million daily actives from July to October 2025. The temporary shift to rivals like UpScrolled and Skylight highlights how ownership transitions, policy updates, and technical disruptions can influence short-term user behavior on dominant platforms.