Hey, it’s Harry.

Welcome back to the streaming and content journey.

It’s been a while! No promises on any update cadence, but I thought I’d drop by and share info about TikTok’s recent US ownership change and some other drama TikTok has been causing.

TikTok’s US business has changed hands. Kinda. The TikTok USDS Joint Venture is majority-owned by a consortium of American and global investors who hold an 80.1% stake, while the original parent company, ByteDance, retains a minority share of 19.9%. The venture is led by three managing investors—Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX—each of which controls a 15% stake in the new entity.

Oracle’s data center subsequently died, just days after the transition. Creators were stuck with a glitch saying they had zero views. My sister in the US reported videos not loading. The transition was unfortunately timed with a massive weather event and major political unrest in the US.

TikTok says any revenue or view issues were simply cosmetic. It still highlights how creators should follow the best practice of being platform agnostic. Post your content everywhere. If one platform goes down, you can still be live or posting videos elsewhere.

As a final note, it’s worth saying non-US TikTok creators and viewers can still interact with US creators and vice versa.

The video above is well worth your time. I encourage you all to watch it.

TikTok’s hyper-aggressive AI moderation creates a digital minefield where creators are silenced by machines that lack even a shred of human nuance. Dylan points out the absurdity of his content being flagged for "weapons" or "dangerous acts" while the exact same video files flourish entirely unmoderated on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. This glaring inconsistency proves the issue isn't the content itself, but a broken "black box" system that penalizes creators for imaginary violations that rival platforms easily recognize as safe news or parody.

The fragility of a TikTok career is chillingly illustrated by Dylan’s near-terminal ban triggered simply by connecting to a "bad" Wi-Fi network. This arbitrary execution, which linked him to a network once used by a previous violator, highlights a terrifying lack of human oversight where an entire livelihood can vanish overnight due to a technicality. Crucially, Dylan notes he was only saved by his massive reach and direct contacts—a luxury of "manual intervention" that is completely unavailable to the thousands of smaller creators being quietly erased by the same glitchy, "gaslighting" system.

Beyond the constant threat of censorship, a crumbling economic model is transforming viral sensations into "starving artists" who are fleeing the platform in droves. Despite generating hundreds of millions of views, Dylan exposes a soul-crushing $0.01 RPM, making the app financially unviable compared to the stability of YouTube’s ecosystem. This combination of abysmal pay and the perpetual fear of automated bans is fueling a talent exodus, threatening to kill TikTok just like Vine as creators realize they can find more respect, money, and common sense elsewhere.

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Harry