Divided Trump campaign weighs joining TikTok, the app he tried to ban
Source: Washington Post
May 5, 2024 at 8:05 a.m. EDT
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is weighing whether to join TikTok, the wildly popular video app he once tried to ban, and the decision has sparked discussion among his advisers in recent weeks, according to four people familiar with the matter.
In 2020, the then-president said the app was a threat to national security because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, and he called for TikTok’s forced sale or a nationwide ban as part of an executive order that was ultimately overturned by the courts. But Trump advisers say he changed his stance before the election that year after seeing internal polls suggesting a ban could hurt his standing with voters.
More recently, he has criticized a similar sale-or-ban effort signed into law by President Biden as mostly benefiting Facebook, which he has partially blamed for his election loss. Trump would be one of the few high-profile Republicans to use the app, which many in his party have attacked over concerns that the Chinese government could use it to gather data on Americans or spread propaganda.
The discussions within the Trump campaign have centered on whether the benefits he might accrue politically would be worth the criticism, primarily from Republicans and those in the intelligence community who have crusaded against the app, people with knowledge of the conversations said. They are also trying to figure out how Trump’s brand can be translated to TikTok, a youth-beloved app with a culture all its own.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/05/trump-tiktok-campaign-debate/
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