admin
Last updated on April 5th, 2024 at 11:07 am
The former president’s newfound support follows Joe Biden’s statement that he would sign legislation capable of banning the app in the US
Donald Trump, who considered banning the Chinese owners of TikTok while he was president, has now expressed support for the popular phone app.
“There are many people on TikTok who love the platform. There are also many young kids on TikTok who would be devastated without it,” Trump told CNBC on Monday. He expressed concern that without TikTok, “you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.” While he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk, he acknowledged that other apps also present risks, singling out the Meta-owned platform. “I think Facebook has been very detrimental to our country, especially concerning elections,” he said. Last week, he suggested that banning TikTok would benefit “Facebook and Zuckerschmuck,” referring to Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and predicting that it would double their business.
Trump faced suspension and later a permanent ban from Meta-owned Facebook shortly after the January 6, 2021 riots “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” He was reinstated approximately two years later. Following this, he launched his own social media platform, Truth Social, where he is now primarily active.
Trump’s recent endorsement of TikTok, and consequently its owner ByteDance, coincided with Joe Biden’s announcement that he would sign legislation currently progressing through Congress, which could lead to TikTok’s ban. The bill is scheduled for a vote in the US House on Wednesday.
If approved, the legislation would mandate that ByteDance divest TikTok, an app utilized by approximately 150 million Americans, or else face a ban from US app stores and web-hosting services. This ban would prevent users from accessing the platform within six months.
A TikTok spokesperson stated that the bill is designed to result in a “total ban of TikTok in the United States” and initiated a campaign encouraging users to contact Congress to “prevent a TikTok shutdown.”
In a statement, the company remarked, “This legislation will infringe upon the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they depend on for growth and job creation.”
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern in a statement that a potential TikTok ban was an effort by political leaders “to trade our First Amendment rights for cheap political points during an election year” and asserted that it would undoubtedly stifle free speech.
Trump, who stated on CNBC that “there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with TikTok, recently met with Republican mega-donor Jeff Yass at a Club for Growth donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. Yass reportedly has a significant financial stake in the popular social media platform.
Shortly after this meeting, the former president posted on Truth Social: “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better.”
Reports on Monday indicated that Kellyanne Conway, a former aide in the Trump White House, had been lobbying for TikTok in Congress over the past few months on behalf of a pro-business organization.
Conway expressed to Politico that alienating TikTok users in the US, many of whom are voters, would be “draconian” and “ill-advised.”
“If the goal is to hold China accountable, why begin with TikTok instead of addressing issues such as the origins of the Covid crisis, the fentanyl crisis, the persecution of Uyghurs, and the vulnerability of Taiwan?” Conway questioned.
David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth, expressed in a Fox News column last year that banning TikTok under the Data Act would deal “a significant blow to the freedoms that Americans have enjoyed since the first smartphones came on the market.”
Yass’s hedge fund, Susquehanna International Group, acquired a stake in ByteDance in 2012, estimated by the Wall Street Journal last year to be around 15%, with Yass personally owning 7%, valued at $21 billion.
Yass stated to the outlet last year, “TikTok represents free speech and innovation, embodying libertarian and free market ideals. The notion of banning TikTok goes against everything I stand for.”
Despite donating $10 million to the Super PAC branch of the Club for Growth, which currently holds $22 million in cash according to an FCC filing, Trump has not yet secured its support in this election cycle.
