Donald Trump, the United States presidential candidate from the Republican Party decided to open a TikTok account last Saturday (June 1) and instantly gained 3 million followers within one day.
Delving into the world of TikTok, which Trump once tried to “ban” for security reasons, is expected to help the former US leader reach more young voters. Amidst a fierce competition with Joe Biden from the Democratic Party before the US presidential elections on November 5.
The Biden campaign team also has a TikTok account and has about 340,000 followers.
However, Biden signed legislation to ban the popular short video sharing app, which has 170 million users in America, if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell its stake on time.
Trump posted a video of the launch of his TikTok account @realdonaldtrump. Last Saturday evening (1) with a clip of him greeting the fans. During the Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts tournament in Newark, New Jersey. This clip has been viewed more than 56 million times.
Trump said he would use “all available tools to communicate directly with the American people.”
Bydance is filing a lawsuit challenging a law requiring the company to sell TikTok by January 2024 or face a ban in the United States. This came after the White House announced that it wanted the Chinese company to end its ownership of the application for security reasons.
TikTok has confirmed that it has not and will never share data about its American users with the Chinese government, and that the company has taken concrete steps to protect user privacy.
Trump himself tried to ban TikTok when he was US president in 2020, but was blocked by a court. He said in March this year that TikTok actually represents a threat to American security. But banning the app will anger many young people. It is in favor of Facebook, the social networking site that Trump has frequently criticized.
Trump currently has more than 87 million followers on X and more than 7 million on his personal platform, Truth Social.
Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered oral arguments to be submitted by September after TikTok, Bydance and a group of TikTok creators joined the US Department of Justice. Asking the court to set an “expedited” timeframe to hear Bydance’s case against the law mandating the sale of TikTok shares.
Source: Reuters
@RealDonaldTrump Launching my TikTok at @UFC ♬ Original audio – President Donald J. Trump