Former President Trump on Thursday voiced opposition to a bill that would ban TikTok in the United States, despite previously supporting bans on the social media app.
In a post on Truth Social, the former president argued that banning TikTok would benefit Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is CEO of its parent company Meta.
“If you eliminate TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump said. “Facebook cheated in the last election and I don’t want them to do better. They are the true enemy of the people!”
Facebook banned President Trump from entering the country in January 2021 following the Capitol riot, during which hundreds of his supporters tried to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
The former president spent months leading up to the riot spreading false claims about the election on social media.
Mr. Mehta reinstated Mr. Trump last year.
The bill, criticized by President Trump and unanimously passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, would require TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to withdraw from the app or face a U.S. ban. You will have to face it.
When President Trump took office in 2020, he vowed to ban video-based social media apps from operating in the United States and ordered ByteDance to withdraw TikTok from its U.S. operations. However, this order was later blocked in court.
As TikTok has grown in popularity in recent years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have become increasingly concerned about the data privacy and national security risks posed by the app.
The Protecting Americans from Regulatory Applications by Foreign Adversaries Act, introduced Thursday by a House committee, was introduced just two days ago with more than a dozen bipartisan co-sponsors.
The White House has previously supported efforts to give the president the power to ban TikTok, but on Wednesday called the bill a “welcome step.”
“The Administration is working with lawmakers of both parties to develop durable legislative solutions that address the threat of technology services operating within the United States in ways that pose risks to Americans’ sensitive data and broader national security. ,” a National Security Council spokesperson said in a statement.
“This bill is an important and welcome step towards addressing that threat,” they added.
TikTok has strongly opposed the move, calling it “a total ban on TikTok, no matter how much the creators try to hide it” and urging users to call Congress to oppose the bill.
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