12th March, 2024
By Nehru Odeh
US Presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he is against banning TikTok in spite of the threat it poses to national security because a ban on the popular app would make people go crazy and strengthen Facebook, which he regarded as “enemy of the people. Trump said a ban on Twitter would impact young people.
Asked about app’s security, Trump said: “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” he said. “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok.”
“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Mr Trump told NBC on Monday.
Trump made this statement as Americans lawmakers consider a bill this week that would give TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the short video app used by 170 million Americans or face a possible ban.
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Wednesday under fast-track rules that require two-thirds of members to vote “yes” for the measure to win passage. President Joe Biden has said he will sign the bill if it passes.
However, Trump’s present statement is a clear reversal of his earlier opposition to TikTok. In 2020, Trump sought to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat but was blocked by the courts. Many analysts believe he stated his views in order to Influence the opinions of Republicans and make them vote against the proposed ban.
Still, TikTok told Congress late Monday in a letter seen by Reuters it is “not owned or controlled by the Chinese government” and argued if the company was sold another buyer would not continue TikTok’s $1.5 billion effort to protect U.S. data.
“Ironically, U.S. user data could be less secure under a divestment scheme,” the company said.
The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community released on Monday said “TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022.”
Trump has long harbored grievances against Facebook, now known as Meta. In 2017, Trump tweeted “Facebook was always anti-Trump,” and in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, Trump took issue with $400 million in donations made by founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to nonprofits supporting local election offices around the country during the pandemic.
The donations paid for ballot drop boxes, equipment to process mail-in ballots, recruiting poll workers and voter information campaigns on voting safely during COVID — three initiatives that were opposed by Trump and his allies.
Trump’s false claims on Facebook and Instagram that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him resulted in a two-year account suspension imposed by Facebook parent company Meta. Since he was reinstated in February 2023, Trump and his campaign have been using Meta’s platforms for fundraising.