Trump Vows To ‘Never Ban’ TikTok
Former President Donald Trump said this week that if he was elected to another term in the White House, he would not ban the popular social media app TikTok. The statement occurred after the former president joined TikTok earlier this month.
Trump told Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk that he would not shut down the platform if elected.
During the video, Trump said that the “big message is vote for Trump. We’re going to make our country greater than ever before.”
“I will never ban TikTok,” Trump said when asked.
Kirk then called Trump “TikTok’s favorite president.”
The former president’s comments came amid concerns that the app may be used by the Chinese government to spy on Americans. The app is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
During his time in office, Trump vowed to have the social media platform transferred to an American company or be shut down. Earlier this year Congress passed a bill requiring that ByteDance sell TikTok to an American company or be shut down within one year.
Trump’s campaign is hoping that it can get its message out to young voters, who heavily use the app. Previously, Trump targeted President Joe Biden on social media, saying that he was “responsible for banning TikTok.”
He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party,” he added.
“It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote! They also must remember, more importantly, that he is destroying our Country, and is A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” wrote Trump.
The president’s account received more than one million followers within a day of the announcement that he was joining.
Trump made a tiktok account less than 12 hours ago and has 1.4M followers.
Biden amassed a total of 335k followers since February. pic.twitter.com/ZGU74BuoLx
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 2, 2024
The former president announced he was joining the popular app during a UFC event earlier this month. UFC CEO Dana White said that Trump had joined the platform during the event.
Trump said that it was his “honor.”
