Former President Donald Trump on Thursday signaled his opposition to a TikTok ban being considered in Congress, arguing that it might help Facebook, which he called “a real Enemy of the People!”
“For those who eliminate TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump, 77, claimed in a Truth Social post, apparently referring to Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated within the last Election, doing higher. They’re a real Enemy of the People!” he added.
Zuckerberg banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram on Jan. 7, 2021, in the future after the previous president’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an try and stop the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
Trump seethed in regards to the Meta CEO’s decision, releasing a press release, months later, saying, “Next time I’m within the White House there can be no more dinners, at his request, with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife. It would be all business!”
Meta reinstated Trump last yr.
In a 50-0 vote, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday advanced laws that seeks to crack down on TikTok.
The bill, introduced earlier this week by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Sick.), would give the favored video-sharing app’s Chinese parent company — ByteDance — 165 days to sell TikTok or face being banned from app stores operated by Apple, Google and others.
The laws has the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and President Biden has said he would sign it into law if it reaches his desk.
In December 2022, Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act, which banned the app from federal government devices and systems, amid concerns that ByteDance could allow the Chinese Communist Party access to user data.
ByteDance denies it might share user data with the CCP, calling the concerns “misinformation.”
“This laws has a predetermined consequence: a complete ban of TikTok in the USA,” the corporate said after Thursday’s vote. “The federal government is attempting to strip 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.”
Trump has previously supported banning TikTok within the US, going so far as signing an executive order in August of 2020 that gave ByteDance 45 days to sell the social media platform.
Trump’s order was blocked in court and Biden revoked the ban upon taking office, as a substitute directing the Department of Commerce to find out whether TikTok poses a national security threat.
The Post reported on Thursday that billionaire hedge fund manager and GOP megadonor Jeff Yass has been personally calling Republican members of the House to attempt to halt the laws searching for to ban the app.
Yass’s fund has a $33 billion stake in Bytedance.
A spokesman for Yass denied that he was making calls to GOP lawmakers.
