TikTok’s First US-Only Feature Is a Local News Feed That Asks for Your Location Data.
It’s been less than a month since TikTok’s US division came under new ownership , and American users are already getting an exclusive feature. In a surprise move, today’s announcement of a new ” Local Feed ” specifically for US users appears to be designed to help Americans see content from their immediate surroundings. Technically, it’s similar to the ” Nearby Feed ” introduced in the UK and Europe in December, though this specific version may differ in minor details, such as the name. Perhaps more importantly, the company wants access to your GPS data for the “Local Feed” to work, but it’s an opt-in option, and you can still use the local feed version without sharing it.
TikTok’s new local feed
Today TikTok announced its Local News feed, and it’s already showing up in my app without me having to update or enable the feature. It’s located to the left of the Following feed, and tapping it reveals a scrollable list of posts, rather than the usual autoplaying videos you have to swipe through. TikTok says the feed is “designed to help you discover and engage with content, businesses, and services wherever you are,” and yes, what I saw were mostly New York City restaurant recommendations.
It’s worth noting that I’ve received these recommendations in my For You feed from time to time before, and when I go on vacation, these posts usually change depending on where I live. So the app’s algorithm already took location into account, at least to some extent. But the local feed lets you choose when to show these posts, rather than waiting for the For You feed to show them to you at its own discretion. It can also conceivably make them even more specific to your location, which I’ll discuss later.
(Note that while it initially appears as a scrolling list, once you navigate to a video, you’ll be able to scroll through the feed as normal.)
How to view your local feed on TikTok
Today, when I opened the app, a local feed automatically appeared, and during a phone call with TikTok representatives, they confirmed that no additional settings are required to view it. However, there are some restrictions on the content that appears in it. For example, content from accounts of users under 18 won’t appear in the local feed, nor will content from private accounts or accounts with privacy settings set to “Friends” or “Only You.”
There are two ways to find your location in TikTok’s local feed.
One somewhat concerning aspect of TikTok’s “Local Feed” feature is the disclaimer at the bottom of the post announcing its launch, which notes that TikTok will use your GPS location to “enable the Local Feed feature.” However, in a phone call, the company clarified that things aren’t quite that clear-cut. Essentially, there are two ways TikTok’s “Local Feed” determines your location: “collecting coarse location data” and “collecting precise GPS data.”
Previously, the app worked on a coarse data collection basis, using information like your IP address, the network you’re connecting from, and some data about your social media activity (such as how you’ve been tagged) to roughly determine your location. This doesn’t use GPS, and is more similar to how, for example, Netflix determines that you’re watching content from the US based on your Wi-Fi network. This feature can’t be disabled, but TikTok confirmed to me that this way the app typically only determines your location up to a certain county, and then the For You and Local feeds can use this data to find information relevant to you. This is essentially how the app has worked for years, and TikTok confirmed to me that “nothing has changed regarding coarse location.” What’s new is the ability to share precise GPS data with TikTok , which isn’t required for the Local feed to work but will be used to provide even more precise content. For example, you might see content specific to the neighborhoods of Red Hook or Astoria (specific areas of Brooklyn and Queens), rather than just content relevant to all of Brooklyn or Queens. According to TikTok’s support page , the toggle for this feature is located in the TikTok app under “Settings & Privacy” > “Privacy,” although this feature isn’t yet available to some users, and I haven’t seen it yet.
According to a TikTok representative I spoke with, there was some initial confusion among users because the local feed was showing content specific to their region, even though the app, according to their phone settings (on iPhones, this is under Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services ), wasn’t tracking GPS location. However, I was told that this is based on existing approximate location data (described above), and if you don’t have the option to enable location services in the TikTok app or don’t see the TikTok app on the Location Services page in your device’s settings, you can be sure that TikTok can’t access your GPS data.
This should reassure anyone concerned about TikTok’s new privacy policy, which initially appeared to give the company permission to collect your “precise location” provided you had location services enabled on your phone, but now states that location services must be enabled specifically for the TikTok app for this to happen.
How the Local Channel Uses Your GPS Data
In other words, the local feed doesn’t track your GPS data by default, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see anything unless you consent to sharing GPS data—instead, it will use the same track location data the app has had access to for years to populate that feed. If you want more accurate content and agree to the app tracking your GPS data, you simply need to wait for TikTok’s location service to appear and enable it in the TikTok app under Settings > Security & Privacy > Location Services .
If you don’t do this, the company “doesn’t have access to your precise location,” a fact noted in a later update to the initial announcement of the Local feed. Meanwhile, if you don’t see the location services toggle on this page at all, then, according to the update, “you don’t have access to this feature yet” and will need to wait until it becomes available. In any case, until you enable this setting, the Local feed will use approximate data.
If you enable location services for TikTok, the company states that they will only track your location while you’re using the app, and an indicator will appear on the screen indicating that your location is being accessed. Furthermore, users under 18 will not be able to enable GPS data sharing, although this feature remains optional for all users and is disabled by default.
Meanwhile, if you want to disable approximate location tracking, your only option is to uninstall the app entirely, though this was true even before the Local Feed feature.
Updated February 11, 2026, at 4:22 PM: TikTok has clarified how the Local Feed feature works and when it does and does not use your data.