Tech
TikTok attributes recent glitches to a power outage at a US data center
As snowstorms pelted the U.S. on Sunday, TikTok users reported widespread issues with the app, like problems loading comments or unexpected behavior from the For You page algorithm. For some users, the problems continue to persist.
The timing of these outages lines up with the long-awaited creation of a separate U.S. TikTok entity last week, which the U.S. government mandated due to concerns about the Chinese government potentially accessing user data via the app’s former parent company, ByteDance. (Now, ByteDance owns less than 20% of the new TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while managing investors Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX own 15% each.)
However, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture stated in a post on X that these issues were caused by a power outage at a U.S. data center.
“Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a U.S. data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate,” the company said. “We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”
According to user-reported data from Downdetector, the outage is impacting users across the country.
TikTok’s reasoning for the glitches is logical, given that more than one million people in the U.S. have been impacted by power outages after the massive storm. But some users are suspicious given how soon the outages occurred after the U.S. joint venture was formally established.
The outage also overlaps with ongoing protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where thousands of ICE agents have been deployed since early January in what ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons called the “largest immigration operation ever.”
On Saturday, border patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, marking ICE’s second murder of a civilian in Minneapolis this month.
In the wake of the killing, some TikTok users said they had trouble searching on the app for information about the events in Minneapolis. The app malfunctions then led to panic about the possibility of government censorship. However, TikTok attributes these issues to its concurrent data center outage.
People had also expressed concern over the weekend about TikTok’s updated privacy policy, which includes language that allows TikTok to collect data about users, including their “sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status.” However, as TechCrunch reported, some of these disclosures are not new and had appeared in TikTok’s privacy policy prior to the ownership deal’s close, primarily to comply with California’s Consumer Privacy Act.
While the recent TikTok outages and privacy policy changes seem to be run-of-the-mill problems with bad timing, Americans do have reason to be cautious about social media surveillance — especially in times of political unrest.
Tech
Revolut eyes valuation of up to $200B in eventual IPO
British neobank Revolut seems to be eyeing a major valuation bump when it eventually goes public. The company is targeting a market cap between $150 billion and $200 billion in an initial public offering, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous investor sources.
The fintech giant, which secured a full banking license in the United Kingdom in March after years of waiting, was most recently valued at $75 billion, up from $45 billion in 2024, in a secondary share sale that made it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.
Revolut’s co-founder and CEO, Nik Storonsky, last week said that the company’s IPO was at least “two years away,” according to Bloomberg.
According to PitchBook and the Financial Times, the company is working on another secondary share sale, scheduled for the second half of 2026, that would value it at more than $100 billion.
As of November 2025, the company had raised a total of $5.89 billion, according to PitchBook. Revolut reported revenue of $6 billion in the financial year ended December 31, 2025, up from $4 billion in 2024. The company’s net profit grew to $1.7 billion, up from $1 billion in 2024, and counted 68.3 million retail customers at the end of 2025.
Revolut declined to comment.
Founded in 2015, Revolut offers a range of services spanning multi-currency accounts, payment and transfer services, crypto products, insurance, and more. The neobank has been pouring truckloads of cash into expanding its operations internationally, and recently applied for a banking license in the United States.
Besides the U.K., Revolut has a banking license in the European Union, and it operates in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, and the U.S. Revolut launched operations in India last October, is about to start operating in Colombia this year, and has received a banking license in Mexico.
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Tech
Amazon taps Sweden’s Einride for its electric big rigs
Einride is adding 75 of its electric heavy duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network as part of a deal that gives the Swedish startup a toehold in the e-commerce giant’s operations. Einride will also provide charging infrastructure across five locations in the United States, under the agreement announced Tuesday.
Amazon isn’t buying or operating the electric trucks. Instead, Einride will own and manage (using its own Saga AI software) the trucks, which can be used by drivers in Amazon’s Relay freight network. Relay, launched in 2017, is an app that truck drivers can use to book hauling gigs with Amazon.
Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli, who took over as chief nearly a year ago, said working with Amazon is a powerful validation of the startup’s technology and strategic vision.
“By deploying our intelligent platform within one of the world’s most sophisticated logistics networks, we are accelerating growth, while continuing to build industry-leading operational expertise,” he said in a statement.
Einride has gained attention and investment for its two-pronged approach to freight. The company has developed and now operates a fleet of about 200 heavy-duty electric trucks for companies like Heineken, PepsiCo, and Carlsberg Sweden in Europe, North America, and the UAE. It has also developed autonomous pod-like trucks, which stand out for their cab-less design.
The agreement with Amazon doesn’t include the autonomous pods.
Einride has landed this agreement at a critical time: The startup is finalizing a merger with blank-check company Legato Merger Corp. and is expected to go public soon.
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While the agreement might not carry the same weight for Amazon, which has a market cap of $2.7 trillion, it does contribute to its low-carbon goals. Amazon has said it wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040.
“This rollout is an important step forward in addressing one of the toughest challenges we face in decarbonizing our transportation network — electrifying heavy-duty trucking,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’re excited to continue to collaborate with Einride and learn from these operations as the trucks hit the road.”
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Tech
YouTube expands its AI likeness detection technology to celebrities
YouTube is expanding its new “likeness detection” technology, which identifies AI-generated content, such as deepfakes, to people within the entertainment industry, the company announced on Tuesday.
The technology works similarly to YouTube’s existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users’ uploaded videos, allowing rights owners to request removal or share in the video’s revenue.
Likeness detection does the same, but for simulated faces. The feature is meant to help protect creators and other public figures from having their identities used without their permission — a common problem for celebrities who find their likenesses have been used in scam advertisements.
The technology was first made available to a subset of YouTube creators in a pilot program last year before expanding more broadly to include politicians, government officials, and journalists this spring.
Now YouTube says the technology is being made available to those in the entertainment industry, including talent agencies, management companies, and the celebrities they represent. The company has support from major agencies like CAA, UTA, WME, and Untitled Management, which offered feedback on the new tool.
Use of the likeness detection tool does not require entertainers to have their own YouTube channels.
Instead, the feature scans for AI-generated content to detect visual matches of an enrolled participant’s face. Users can then choose to request removal of the video for privacy policy violations, submit a copyright removal request, or do nothing. YouTube notes that it won’t remove all content, as it permits parody and satire content under its rules.
In the future, the technology will support audio as well, the company says.
Related to this, YouTube has also been advocating for similar protections at a federal level, with its support for the NO FAKES Act in Washington, D.C. This would regulate the use of AI to create unauthorized re-creations of an individual’s voice and visual likeness.
The company hasn’t yet said how many removals of AI deepfakes have been managed by the tool so far, but noted in March that the amount of removals was still “very small.”
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