Trump’s TikTok U-turn: Says some kids will ‘go crazy without it’, Facebook ‘enemy of the people’
As the US is moving towards a possible ban on TikTok in the country, former president Donald Trump has now opposed it, saying such a step will only empower Facebook which in his view is the “enemy of the people”.
He also noted that lots of kids ‘will go crazy’ without the Chinese-owned video sharing platform which is being seen as a national security threat for US due to alleged links to the Communist Party as well as concerns over user data sharing and privacy.
Trump, who himself in 2020 tried to ban TikTok, said that if the proposal is implemented, it will give unfair advantages to Facebook owner Meta.
“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok, but the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media,” said Trump, while speaking to CNBC about the controversial app.
“I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country,” he said.
“There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump further said.
Lawmakers have been discussing a measure which will force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok in the US by September 30. President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill if it is cleared by US Congress.
US government legislation against TikTok
Trump’s remarks came as the House is considering legislation which will force ByteDance to divest TikTok in the US in six months. Otherwise the application will be removed from the app stores and websites of the United States due to national security concerns regarding the interactions between Chinese government and ByteDance.
The US has expressed its concerns regarding the chances of data collected from millions of app users being handed over to the Chinese government and being used for spreading propaganda or changing narratives online around sensitive topics.
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Trump acknowledged that the concerns over TikTok regarding national security and data privacy need to be fixed.
Trump has for a long time held grievances against Facebook.
In 2017, he said “Facebook was always anti-Trump.”
After his 2020 election loss, he raised the issue of $400 million worth of donations made by founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan to nonprofits which supported local election offices across the country.
