Presidential candidate Donald Trump raised concerns about banning TikTok ahead of a vote next week by the House that will give TikTok owner ByteDance about six months to divest the favored short video app.
The previous Republican president searching for a return to the White House wrote late Thursday on social media site Truth Social “in the event you eliminate TikTok, Facebook… will double their business,” and added he doesn’t want Facebook “doing higher.”
The campaign didn’t immediately comment on whether Trump has a position on the laws. Facebook parent Meta declined to comment.
In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts. AP
The Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday approved laws on a 50-0 vote to crackdown on TikTok, which has about 170 million US users.
The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; if it didn’t, app stores operated by Apple, Google and others couldn’t legally offer TikTok or provide internet hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.
In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts.
Trump said in an August 2020 executive order that TikTok data collection “threatens to permit the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to trace the locations of Federal employees and contractors, construct dossiers of private information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
The House bill would give China’s ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok. REUTERS
TikTok, which says it has not and wouldn’t share US user data with the Chinese government, argues the House bill amounts to a ban and it is just not clear if China would approve any sale, or that it might be divested in six months.
“This laws has a predetermined consequence: a complete ban of TikTok in america,” the corporate said after the vote. “The federal government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
Trump posted “in the event you eliminate TikTok, Facebook… will double their business,” and added he doesn’t want Facebook “doing higher.” AP
The app is popular and getting laws approved by each the House and Senate in an election yr could also be difficult. Last month, President Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.
Trump’s campaign has not joined TikTok.
