In a recent post on his social media platform Truth Social former President Donald Trump warned voters that President Joe Biden’s efforts to ban the popular app TikTok are a ploy to benefit Facebook. Trump who previously advocated for banning TikTok due to security concerns related to its Chinese ownership has now reversed his stance as his 2024 presidential opponent pursues a similar path.
The House of Representatives recently approved a controversial foreign aid package that included a proposed ban on TikTok. The bill set to be voted on in the Senate this week would require the app to find a new parent company and divest from its current owner Beijing-based tech company ByteDance.
Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok. He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the…
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) April 22, 2024
Just days after the House approved the bill Trump took to Truth Social to blast the potential ban. Addressing his message “especially [to] the young people” he referred to Biden as “Crooked Joe Biden” and accused him of being responsible for the ban.
Trump claimed that the plan would lead “Facebook [to] become richer and more dominant” and enable Meta to “fight” the GOP “perhaps illegally.” He labeled the scheme as “election interference” and called on “young people” and all voters to “remember this on November 5th Election Day.”
The former president concluded his post by declaring that Biden “is destroying our country.”
According to RedState the pending policy would force TikTok to sell to a different parent company but would not explicitly ban the app from the United States. However the Chinese government has stated that it will not allow ByteDance to sell the app.
If TikTok fails to divest from the Chinese company the app will be blocked in the United States. Some legislators have also called for a ban on the app due to concerns about its impact on young people with notorious “TikTok challenges” leading to injuries and deaths.
