Despite signing a bill into law to ban TikTok or force its Chinese parent company to divest, President Joe Biden’s campaign has continued to use the app.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have agreed to ban TikTok for a myriad of reasons, including the threat it poses to national security — as the app is owned by a company based in communist China, meaning that Chinese law requires TikTok to share all of its data with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including Americans’ personal data.
FBI Director Chris Wray tells NBC about the major national security risks posed by TikTok and its relationship to the Chinese Communist Party.
That isn't stopping the Biden campaign — which is still a prolific user of the Chinese spyware app. pic.twitter.com/pWt1QO5do3
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 23, 2024
Conservatives are also concerned about the effects that the app has on American youth, including pushing harmful ideologies and dangerous “TikTok challenges” that have killed many American children and teenagers.
The ban was signed into law by Biden after passing in both the House and Senate in bipartisan votes. The measure was tied to a controversial foreign aid package that gave billions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which outraged many Americans who are tired of Congress helping foreign countries more than their own constituents.
Despite signing the ban into law, Biden will continue to use the social media app. His campaign officials told the media on Wednesday that the Biden campaign’s official account “will stay on TikTok” until the ban officially happens.
“A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are — and that includes online,” a Biden campaign official told The Hill while trying to justify the decision to stay on the platform. “TikTok is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters.”
“When the stakes are this high in the election, we are going to use every tool we have to reach young voters where they are,” the official added.
The Biden campaign has claimed that it would be using “enhanced security measures” while using the app, though it refused to go into detail about those measures.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has nine months to sell the app to an American company or the app will be banned.
Meanwhile, TikTok has announced plans to fight the ban in court — claiming it was unconstitutional. This is especially ironic considering the fact that the CCP does not allow its citizens to use many American-owned social media apps, and requires American companies operating in China to have to allow a lot of access to the CCP.
“This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court,” TikTok wrote in a statement on Wednesday following the passage of the bill. “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail.”
“This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans,” the statement continued. “As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired.”
Some reports have indicated that ByteDance would rather close down the TikTok app entirely than sell it to an American company, which only further proves that the CCP cares more about the app as an espionage and subversion tool.
that ByteDance would prefer to shut down rather than sell only makes sense if Tiktok is a tool for espionage https://t.co/ckPHWwFlCX
— Phil Labonte, Talent Terrorist (@philthatremains) April 26, 2024
