Trump Joins TikTok, Gains 3 Million Followers Quickly

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has 3 million TikTok followers a day after joining the short video social media app he tried to prohibit as president on national security concerns

The former president’s decision to join the platform on Saturday may aid in his campaign to recruit younger electors for the presidency for the third time. He and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden are in a close contest ahead of the presidential election on November 5.

With over 340,000 followers, Biden’s election campaign is already present on TikTok. However, 170 million Americans utilize the app in question, and Biden has signed a bill prohibiting the app if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, fails to divest it.

On Saturday night, Trump uploaded a launch video to his account, which bears the handle @realdonaldtrump. With over 56 million views, the video depicted Trump greeting supporters at a Newark, New Jersey, Ultimate Fighting Championship match.

In a statement, Trump declared his intention to “use every available tool to communicate directly with the American people…”
ByteDance is contesting in court the ruling that mandates the sale of TikTok by January of next year or risk a prohibition.

The White House asserts that, for national security reasons, it desires the cessation of Chinese ownership.

TikTok has claimed that it will not disclose user data from the United States to the Chinese government and has implemented significant safeguards to protect its users’ privacy.

The courts thwarted Trump’s 2020 presidential effort to prohibit TikTok. Opening a new tab, he stated in March that the platform posed a threat to national security and that a moratorium on it would harm some young people while only serving to bolster Meta Platforms’ position; he has also harshly criticized Facebook.

With over 87 million followers on X and over 7 million followers on his platform, Truth Social, where he publishes nearly daily, Trump already has an active social media presence.

Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals established a rushed schedule for examining the legal challenges to the new law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia scheduled the case for oral arguments in September. This decision was reached after TikTok, ByteDance, and a group of TikTok content creators joined the Justice Department earlier this month to request a prompt schedule from the court.