Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is reiterating his support for TikTok supportseven if Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to divest its U.S. holdings. Trump was, in fact, the first president to want to ban TikTok.
“I’m for TikTok because you need competition. If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram,” Trump told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Trump previously called TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, a threat but is now active on the medium himself.
Perhaps the turnaround can be explained by Trump being suspended by Facebook and Instagram in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021. The restrictions have since been lifted.
In June 2021, President Joe Biden determined that Chinese companies such as WeChat and TikTok will be banned under the current circumstances.
Trump himself owns a majority stake in the social media company Trump Media and Technology Group, which operates the rival network Truth Social.
The hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will determine TikTok’s fate in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential election.
Source: www.emerce.nl
