How Donald Trump Went From Backing a TikTok Ban to Backing Off
The New York Times
In 2020, he moved to ban the Chinese-owned app. Now, he is opposing the Biden administration’s effort to do just that.
Four years ago, President Donald J. Trump denounced TikTok, the Chinese-owned video sharing app, as a threat to America’s national security. This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to retake the White House, he called it a “unique medium for freedom of expression.”
The comment was part of a brief he filed to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to pause a ban on TikTok set to take effect next month so that he could “negotiate a resolution” to save the platform.
A law passed with wide bipartisan support and signed by President Biden in April calls for ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States because of its risk to national security and free speech. The justices are considering the company’s challenge to that law.
TikTok has said the law violates the First Amendment. It also says that its corporate parent is majority-owned by global investors.
The Biden administration and members of Congress argue that the platform’s Chinese ownership compromises U.S. security because of the vast amount of user tracking and data collection it performs, and because of the risk that Beijing could use the app to spread propaganda.
That was Mr. Trump’s position, too, before he became a political star on TikTok, where he now has more than 14.7 million followers.
