TikTok’s Changing Terms of Service Has People Cutting Ties With the App

An announcement from TikTok has prompted some U.S. users to start deleting the app at an alarming rate. The news comes after several months of back and forth between the company and the U.S. government, which told the app that certain changes needed to be made in order for it to still be permitted to be used in the country.

However, acquiescing to the Trump administration's demands appears to be having a negative effect on the company, especially after it released a new privacy policy.

But, TikTok users are saying that there's more at play here than the new terms and conditions that have started popping up for users, and instead say that the app has dramatically changed since switching hands, and some people even claim that certain topics are being throttled, and in some cases, censored all together.

That's not all that is going against the platform though, and users are sharing their laundry list of reasons why everyone is deleting TikTok, and the reason may surprise you.

According to CNBC, deletions of the app have increased 150 percent between Jan. 21 and Jan. 26, 2026. Users have been open about their reasons for fleeing the social media platform, with some people saying they were turned off by the new privacy policy that appeared on accounts on Jan. 22.

The policy had new information about what type of data was being collected from users, including information on users' race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and immigration status.

Additionally, people are claiming that their posts are being censored, with some telling CNBC that they aren't seeing certain topics on the app anymore. Then, there are those who say that they are experiencing frustrating outages and issues with the platform that prevent them from uploading videos.

However, the publication says that while a new privacy policy has popped up for users, the language included in it about race and sexual orientation remains the same as it was in 2024.

In order to continue to operate in the U.S., TikTok was required to sell the majority of the shares of the company previously owned by China-based ByteDance to U.S. investors. Now, the social media platform runs under new ownership, which is legally referred to as TikTok USDS Joint Venture, LLC, according to the BBC.

This includes a board of seven directors, with ByteDance's chief executive Shou Zi Chew still among them.

TikTok was further splintered, with the algorithm of TikTok's app being licensed to the company Oracle, which is now tasked with determining what videos pop up into people's feeds.

The deal is part of the reason why people are leaving the app in droves, since many people are questioning Donald Trump's involvement in TikTok, especially now that they claim that certain topics are being hidden from the main feed of U.S. users.

While it's unclear whether there is any real connection between the president and the app, it appears that even the idea that the two are working together has been enough for both individual brands and major accounts to say "farewell" to the platform.