True to the motto, why do I care about my chatter from yesterday, Donald Trump says he didn't want to ban Tiktok at all. He could have, of course, but then he thought, “Oh no.” The former US president, who would like to run for this office again, explains this in an interview with CNBC. Trump had said several times during his time in office that Tiktok should be banned in the USA.
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Currently, numerous Democrats and Republicans in the USA agree that ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, should be forced to sell Tiktok. Everyone fears that Tiktok will share data with the Chinese government and intervene manipulatively in the election campaign and democratic processes. If everyone agrees, Trump backtracks: Without Tiktok, only Facebook will become even bigger and Facebook will be one of the enemies of the people, like a whole range of media. “Facebook locks people in jail if they spend too much money on campaigns” – what exactly this statement refers to is unclear.
But Trump is not the only one who now believes that Tiktok can remain as it was before. Trump also says he could have had the social media app banned at the time, but then thought to himself: “I could have done it, but you know what, I said to myself, I'll leave it to the others.” He probably means Congress, but that's not entirely clear from the interview, which is available on YouTube. The presidential candidate stammers that it is a difficult decision because so many young people love Tiktok and they would go crazy without the app.
Tiktok as a threat to national security
As recently as 2020, Trump said Tiktok was a threat to national security. When the journalist asked whether that was not true at the time or whether he had changed his mind, Trump replied that Tiktok was a danger because they collect data, but the problem also existed with other services, such as Facebook. And according to Trump, Facebook is working with China and selling the data there. “Many US companies do what China wants.”
There is no mention in the interview of being forced to sell Tiktok, although Trump tried to do exactly that with a decree when he was US President. Tiktok took legal action against it. They were not given the opportunity to comment. Ultimately the project fizzled out.
Now it has emerged again that a group of representatives in the House of Representatives have joined forces to force the Tiktok sale. Otherwise, the app risks being thrown out of the common app stores. The incumbent US President Joe Biden is also said to have signaled his support. Tiktok criticizes again that it is actually a ban on a service.
(emw)