Why TikTok’s first week of American ownership was a disaster

App endured a major outage and user backlash over perceived censorship. Now it’s facing an inquiry by the California governor and an ascendant competitor, writes Blake Montgomery

What did TikTok’s new owners, among them billionaire Oracle owner and Maga donor Larry Ellison (pictured), intend to do with user data? File photo: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

A little more than one week ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalised citizen. Ever since, the video app has been fighting for its life.

TikTok’s calamitous emigration began on January 22 when its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, finalised a deal to sell the app to a group of US investors, among them the business software giant Oracle.