Within hours of joining TikTok, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had attracted more than 2 million followers on the social network he tried to ban as president on national security grounds.
The decision to join the platform on Saturday (1st) could help the former president reach younger voters in his third bid for the White House.
Trump is in a tight race against current President Joe Biden ahead of the November 5 presidential election.
Biden's election campaign is already on TikTok, with 336,000 followers, although the Democrat has signed a bill that could ban the app in the country – where it has around 170 million users – if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not or sell to a third party.
Trump posted a launch video to his account Saturday night. The video, which has more than 34 million views, showed Trump greeting fans at an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Newark, New Jersey.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said he will leave “no front unprotected” in his efforts to reach younger voters.
ByteDance is challenging in court the law that requires the sale of TikTok by January 2025. The White House says it wants Chinese ownership to end for national security reasons.
TikTok has argued that it does not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government and that it has taken substantial steps to protect its users' privacy.
Trump's attempt to ban TikTok in 2020, when he was president, was blocked by the courts.
Trump already has an active social media presence, with more than 87 million followers on X and more than 7 million followers on his own platform, Truth Social, where he posts almost daily.
A U.S. appeals court last week set an accelerated timeline for considering legal challenges to the new law.
The District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the case to be brought up for oral arguments in September, after TikTok, ByteDance and a group of content creators joined the Justice Department earlier this month to ask the court for a quick timeline.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
%20Luca%20Delpia%20-%20Archivio%20della%20Fondazione%20I%20Teatri%20Reggio%20Emilia%201071%20b%20(002).jpg "The CCCP on stage in Legnano for the last call: “If you weren’t there, we would not be here”")
