Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden share little in common—apart from a very public disdain for one another. However, it now appears that the two men have yet both reversed course on the Chinese-owned social video-sharing app TikTok.
Both made very public calls for the banning of popular social media app, only for each to sign up to court potential voters.
Can’t Ban It, Join It!
As previously reported, Mr. Biden joined TikTok in February, with his first video featuring him answering Super Bowl-themed questions ahead of the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers. Biden joined the platform just weeks after he signed into law a bill that gives ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, just nine months to divest the app or see it blocked in the U.S.
In 2020, Mr. Trump also attempted to block the use of the app and signed a presidential executive order that called for it to be banned for its links to China, only for that order to be blocked by U.S. courts. Despite his failed effort to see TikTok banned, Trump joined the platform on Saturday and quickly amassed more than 3.6 million followers—more than times that of Biden’s 340,000 followers.
Trump said he would use “every tool available to speak directly with the American people.”
On Saturday evening, the former president posted from a UFC fight in Newark, New Jersey.
“We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement about the campaign’s decision to join the platform, The Associated Press first reported.
“There’s no place better than a UFC event to launch President Trump’s Tik Tok, where he received a hero’s welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on,” Cheung added.
The Era Of TikTok
Politicians have increasingly used social media to reach Americans, especially young voters who may never see the campaign ads on TV or hear any radio ads.
“TikTok is very popular, especially in the youth segment,” explained technology industry analyst and social media pundit Roger Entner of Recon Analytics. “It’s a great way for the former president to reach an audience that last election overwhelmingly voted for President Biden and is now potentially in play.”
It is unlikely that Trump’s past efforts to ban TikTok will matter to his followers on the video-sharing platform, especially as it is his main political rival who signed the ban into law. Moreover, even though both candidates have warned of the danger that TikTok presents to national security, it is impossible in an election year to ignore its potential reach.
“Biden, who actually signed the divest or ban legislation, is also on TikTok,” noted social media analyst Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media. “It speaks to the platform’s almost unique ability to reach younger audiences, although older people are increasingly there.”
Courting Every Voter
With the election likely to be decided by the narrowest margins, reaching every voter will be crucial this cycle.
“It would be foolish to shun TikTok, given the size of the audience and potential reach,” added Sterling.
Thus it would appear that politicians will take a join them approach, even if they’ll reverse course yet again after Election Day and renew their push for a ban.
