United States – Within less than a day of his joining, former US president Donald Trump, who famously tried to block the Chinese-owned app from the US citing national security concerns, had amassed 3 million followers on TikTok.
Biden Campaign Leverages TikTok
The idea of launching the bid on the platform on Saturday may be important for the former President in his third attempt at the White House. He is currently locked in a tied race against Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in the forthcoming Nov.5 presidential election, as reported by Reuters.
Biden’s election campaign sponsors this platform and has over 340k followers on TikTok. Biden has recently endorsed a bill that seeks to ban the app, which is used by 170 million Americans, provided that its owner, ByteDance, cannot sell it.
The candidate uploaded a campaign video on his Twitter page with the handle @realdonaldtrump on Saturday night. This video received more than 56 million views and depicted Trump welcoming fans at a fight of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Newark, New Jersey, in January 2019.Trump’s huge TikTok growing demonstrates how the platform is part of his campaign to get re-elected as President of the United States amid legal cases and security controversies as influences the nature of online politics.
Let’s take Trump, who proclaimed a statement saying that he would “use every tool available to speak directly with the American people…”
ByteDance has now gone to the courts trying to defy the law that compels the sale of the app by the next January or face the ban. The White House has stated that it must see the Chinese-based ownership come to an end, citing on grounds of national security.
TikTok has stated that it will not use US user data to benefit the Chinese regime and has also reported that it has done a lot to avoid sharing its users’ information.
Battle Against TikTok
He tried to ban TikTok in 2020 when he was the President but this was stopped by the courts of law. He said in March that the platform is a national security threat, and also that it should be banned because it adversely affects some children and young adults, and makes Meta Platforms (META. O) Facebook more dominant, which he has bitterly criticized.
Social Media Reach and Legal Battles
Since January 2021, Trump has more than 87 million followers on X and 7 million followers on his own platform, Truth Social, where he shares information almost daily, as reported by Reuters.
A U. S. appeals court last week laid out a swift timeline to review cases disputing the new law.
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has set the case for oral arguments in September after TikTok, ByteDance, and several independent TikTok content generators cooperating with the Justice Department have requested the court to move the case expeditiously.