Former President Donald Trump has changed his position on the potential ban of social media app TikTok to now warning young Americans that President Joe Biden’s efforts to do so are a ploy. During his presidency Trump advocated for the app to be banned in the United States citing security concerns due to the company’s ownership by the Chinese communist government. However as his 2024 presidential opponent pursues a similar path Trump has warned the public that this move is part of the president’s “major threat to democracy.”
The proposed ban was included in a controversial foreign aid package and would require TikTok to find another parent company and divest from Beijing-based tech company ByteDance.
On April 22, just days after the House approved the bill, Trump used his social media platform Truth Social to criticize the potential crackdown on TikTok. Addressing the message “especially [to] the young people” he referred to the sitting president as “Crooked Joe Biden” who would be responsible for the ban.
Trump argued that the plan would lead “Facebook [to] become richer and more dominant” and enable Meta to “fight” the GOP “perhaps illegally.” He accused the scheme of being “election interference” and urged “young people” and all voters to “remember this on November 5th Election Day.”
The presidential candidate concluded his post by declaring that Biden “is destroying our country.”
Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is 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…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) April 22, 2024
As noted by RedState, the pending policy surrounding TikTok would force the app to sell to a different parent company but would not explicitly ban the technology from the United States. Even if it could remain in the American market the Chinese government has declared it will not allow ByteDance to sell the app.
If TikTok does not divest from the Chinese company the app will end up blocked in the United States. In addition to national security concerns some legislators have called for a ban on the app due to its high risk among young people with too many having wound up injured or dead because of notorious “TikTok challenges” that some argue are being enabled by the technology.
