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Donald Trump appears to have come out in defense of TikTok, the social media platform in crisis Possible ban By Congress, in a flurry of posts late Thursday on its social media platform Truth Social. It should be noted that the platform witnessed a Widespread outage While the former president attempted to live-tweet President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, which cheated in the last election, to do any better. They are the true enemy of the people!” Trump wrote on Thursday night.
It’s unclear why Trump called Facebook “the enemy of the people,” a phrase he usually reserves for mainstream media outlets other than Fox News. Trump does not appear to have used Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s nickname “Zuckerschmuck” before, which, according to a simple Google search, sounds like the name of an actual online store centered around Diabetes.
Trump’s opposition to a TikTok ban would be a reversal of policy from the former president, who signed an executive order in the summer of 2020 that would have forced TikTok’s parent company in China, ByteDance, to divest the social media site entirely or face a ban on US soil.
Trump Executive orderThe decision, which was pending in federal court before being overturned when Biden took office in 2021, described TikTok’s presence as a “national emergency” for the United States that could threaten the country’s security and economy.
“This mobile application may also be used in disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 novel coronavirus,” Trump’s executive order reads in a line that is particularly ironic, given Trump’s comments. . Embracing many conspiracy theories.
The executive order also included allegations of the Chinese Communist Party censoring TikTok, particularly around “the protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.” Because who doesn’t love “Muslim minorities” more than Trump? right?
Why is Trump reversing course on TikTok? Who knows why Trump would do anything? Maybe he’s calculating that he’s helping his social media platform in some way. Or perhaps it’s because Trump has seen at least $5.5 million flow into his business from Chinese sources While he was president. Better yet, Trump might want to postpone the ban until he hypothetically returns to office, a tactic he’s already used to scuttle a bipartisan immigration reform deal because he wants to. Campaign on this issue About “Broken Borders”. It really could be anything.
But Congress is moving forward with a potential ban on TikTok, with a bipartisan bill expected to reach the House floor for a vote very soon. The bill has already won approval from a House committee on a unanimous vote of 50 to 0. As with Trump’s original executive order, the bill would force ByteDance to sell the platform, and if the company refuses, it would allow Congress to ban the site entirely.
The bill has rallied some of TikTok’s estimated 150 million American users, with congressional offices reportedly inundated Thursday with calls urging members of Congress not to ban the app. TikTok even alerted users in the US about the potential ban on Thursday, a move that has angered politicians very angry.
President Biden has come out in support of efforts by Congress to force ByteDance to divest, and the White House has claimed that the president merely rescinded Trump’s executive order to have his own conversations. Security review While he was bound in federal court. But it will be interesting to see if the courts agree that Congress has the right to ban TikTok, a move the company says conflicts with Americans’ free speech rights.
“This legislation would trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” a TikTok spokesperson told Gizmodo. Thursday.
A vote in the House of Representatives has not yet been scheduled, but it seems certain that we will find out sooner rather than later whether TikTok has a future in the United States. Incredibly, Trump wants to let TikTok continue as usual. At least for now.
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