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Although there were murmurings of a TikTok ban for quite some time, many in America didn’t really believe it would happen. Or they hoped that it wouldn’t, at least, as the prospect of a ban was very unpopular with the platform’s users. Unfortunately for millions of Americans, TikTok has been shut down in the U.S. ahead of its formal ban.
With the app shut down, users in America are being shown a message apologizing for the outage. One version of the message directly names Trump in the message as a hope for the app, in messaging that some people are calling “blatantly unprofessional and biased.”
Donald Trump popularized his “concept of a plan” for banning TikTok years ago, but the general idea is one that’s been floating around. Security services were interested in it due to concerns about the ownership structure of Chinese companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance, where the Chinese government has a significant stake — and consequent influence — in the running of the company and the ownership of its data.
Trump was a vociferous detractor of the social media platform and even promised that if he became president again, he’d ban it. The underlying case for banning TikTok proved popular enough with lawmakers that it was signed into law under Joe Biden’s government. So far, so simple. Except when it comes to Trump’s deeply held political convictions, nothing is ever simple.
In a flip-flop for the ages, Trump created a TikTok account. Just days before the ban there were suggestions that Trump could even buy the platform if it was forced to sell its American operations to an American company. Trump has suggested that he will, “most likely,” reverse the TikTok ban when he becomes president, which not only goes against his former campaign against the social media giant but also sidelines his promise to be “tough on China” in his America-first crusade.
In the wake of his flip-flop and after seeing the messaging from ByteDance, many former TikTok users and Americans are losing their goodwill for the platform. Some have even suggested that this entire farce has been planned by Trump, a stunt designed to paint him as a savior and man of the people.
Ironically, the change in messaging to a pro-Trump viewpoint supports the view that TikTok is a vehicle for propaganda designed to create and maintain an influence in foreign countries for the purposes of destabilization and misinformation spreading. A truly unbiased and non-politically motivated international corporation would work behind the scenes to achieve its goals without trying to enter domestic political discourse. This is a message that Trump himself spread, at least until he realized he could use TikTok for his own ends, a truth which several X users were quick to point out.
Trump’s change of heart looks exactly like the self-motivated, valueless, and self-serving behavior that it is. While many American TikTokkers would be sad at the loss of the platform, some are looking past their fondness and refusing to be blind to Trump’s painfully transparent actions that suspiciously hint that his actions are still not for the betterment of America.