On one hand, it doesn’t make any sense: Of all the social media platforms, TikTok skews younger and to the left. (Much younger and more left-leaning than Facebook or X. According to one poll, just 6% of its audience identifies as “mostly conservative.”) It’s emerged as one of the key communicative tools and networking devices for liberal activists, including Antifa. Additionally, it’s a China company.
And on January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not there should be a federal ban.
So why is Trump defending TikTok?
He didn’t always feel this way. In 2020, he threatened a federal ban of TikTok, but never acted on it. But earlier in 2024, President Biden signed a bill that ordered TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok within 270 days.
And to be fair, there are certainly reasons for concern: ByteDance is a Chinese company, and Chinese laws stipulates that a communist government official must sit on their board. In China, government and corporations are inexorably intertwined. Furthermore, should the China government demand access to ByteDance’s data, it’s difficult to envision a scenario where the company says no. […]
— Read More: pjmedia.com
