The TikTok application was able to recover significantly from the slight decline in the number of active users shortly after its ownership was transferred to a group of American investors who took over the management of its operations in the United States.
Although this decline did not last long, other competing video applications, such as “Up Scrolled” and “Skylight Social,” took advantage of this opportunity and witnessed a noticeable increase in the number of users who were looking for alternatives to the “Tik Tok” application.
According to estimates by the company “Similarweb”, which specializes in digital market analysis, the number of active users of the “Tik Tok” application in the United States decreased immediately after the change of ownership to between 86 and 88 million daily users, compared to an average of 92 million daily active users.
However, the application quickly regained its activity, and reached more than 90 million active users daily. Which indicates the return of many users who left the platform.
In conjunction with this slight decline in TikTok usage, alternative video sharing applications have seen significant growth. Although UpScrolled’s size is still small compared to TikTok, it peaked at 138,500 daily active users on January 28, before currently declining to 68,000 users.
The number of daily active Skylight Social users reached 81,200 users, according to Similarweb estimates, and this number later decreased to 56,300 users.
According to the company’s statement to TechCrunch, the total number of registered users on “Skylight Social” rose to 380,000 users in late January.
The decline in use of the “Tik Tok” application, which prompted some to try new applications, was not a direct result of the change in ownership, but rather due to users’ concerns about the impact on their experience on “Tik Tok.”
Concerns have increased regarding the updated privacy policy of the “Tik Tok” application, which granted the application permission to track the precise geographical location of users. Which sparked negative reactions due to privacy concerns.
When reviewing the privacy policy, some users noticed troubling statements, such as TikTok’s reference to the possibility of collecting users’ “immigration status” along with other personal data.
However, this was later found to be an implication under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which requires companies to notify consumers when they collect certain sensitive data.
“Tik Tok” adheres to this law. Any video content that the user shares on the platform becomes part of his data, which requires disclosure.
In addition, the TikTok application experienced a data center outage that lasted for several days at an inappropriate time. Which caused the application to partially crash. Search, likes, and comments were sometimes affected, and problems appeared with videos and chat, in addition to the application’s algorithm being disturbed. Some users thought that these malfunctions indicated that TikTok had imposed censorship on their content. Which prompted them to look for alternatives.
The company announced that the problem of service outage in the data center had been resolved, and attributed it to a power outage caused by a winter storm.
As users accepted the new terms and conditions and resolved issues resulting from the service outage, they returned to the platform, according to Similarweb data.
However, the company indicates that the use of “Tik Tok” is witnessing a gradual decline during the second half of 2025, after peaking at 100 million daily active users from July to October 2025, compared to more than 90 million users currently. (Erm News)
