If you opened TikTok recently, you probably saw some weird stuff happening. Maybe you couldn’t post a new video. Maybe the app asked for your precise location. Maybe you weren’t seeing as much stuff about ICE or the Trump administration’s latest assault on the global world order. If the latter is the case, you weren’t the only one.

When it comes to TikTok, the past week has been full of changes, challenges, and conspiracy theories. It was the first week of operations for the new company that’s running TikTok in the United States: the TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a name that really rolls off the tongue. I like to call it TikTok USA so that it doesn’t sound so much like a military operation, but some are simply referring to the new company as TikTok’s MAGA makeover.

There are some reasons to suspect this. Many of the new company’s investors, including Oracle and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, have close ties to the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has even taken credit for “saving TikTok” by brokering the deal that avoided the app from being banned in the US over national security concerns. And in the past few days, users reported odd activity that seems very much in line with Trump’s agenda: direct messages mentioning Epstein won’t send, videos critical of ICE won’t upload, anti-Trump TikToks are getting suppressed. Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said on Tuesday that “a temporary weather-related power outage” impacted TikTok and led to “technical issues.”

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