TikTok users have been deleting the app at a higher rate since the company announced that its U.S. operations would be housed in a new joint venture.
The daily average of U.S. users deleting the TikTok app has increased nearly 150% over the past five days compared with the previous three months, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower told CNBC.
Last Thursday, TikTok said it had formed a joint venture to keep the video-sharing app operating in the U.S. under new American leadership. The company named Adam Presser, formerly TikTok's head of operations, as CEO of the joint venture.
Some users took to social media to voice their skepticism about the new joint venture after being prompted to agree to an updated privacy policy on Thursday.
Several social media posts pointed to language in the new policy that describes the types of data TikTok may collect, including sensitive information such as "your racial or ethnic origin" as well as "sexual life or sexual orientation, status as transgender or nonbinary, citizenship or immigration status, or financial information."
Despite the social media uproar, that language does not appear to be new. An archived version of the policy from August 2024 includes the same provisions.
Those concerns appear to have weighed on sentiment around the app after the announcement of the joint venture, contributing to a spike in uninstalls over the past several days.