U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has raised concerns about banning TikTok ahead of a U.S. House of Representatives vote next week that would give TikTok owner ByteDance about six months to divest the popular short-form video app.
The former Republican president, who is seeking to return to the White House, wrote on social media site Truth Social late Thursday that “Facebook… would double their business if they got rid of TikTok,” adding that he didn’t want Facebook to “do get better”. “
The campaign did not immediately comment on whether Trump had a stance on the legislation. Facebook parent company Meta declined to comment.
The Energy and Commerce Committee voted 50-0 on Thursday to approve legislation cracking down on TikTok, which has about 170 million U.S. users.
The bill would give ByteDance 165 days to divest TikTok; without doing so, app stores run by Apple, Google and others cannot legally offer TikTok or provide web hosting services for ByteDance-controlled apps.
In 2020, Trump tried to ban TikTok and the Chinese enterprise WeChat, but was blocked by the court.
Trump said in an August 2020 executive order that TikTok data collection “threatens to give the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors and build a network for blackmail.” archives of personal information and conduct corporate espionage.”
TikTok, which said it does not and will not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, argued the House bill amounted to a ban and it was unclear whether China would approve any sale or if it could be divested within six months.
“This legislation has one predetermined outcome: a total ban on TikTok in the United States,” the company said after the vote. “The government is seeking to deprive 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free speech.”
The app is popular, but getting legislation approved by the House and Senate in an election year can be difficult. Last month, Democratic President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign joined TikTok.
Trump’s campaign has not yet joined TikTok.
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