Donald Trump warned about the dangers of TikTok, but fear of a ban has made Facebook stronger

Donald Trump’s view on TikTok is different from Joe Biden.

In a recent statement, former President Donald Trump expressed his concerns on Monday, acknowledging his belief that Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is a national security threat. However, Trump insisted that a ban on TikTok could inadvertently strengthen the position of Facebook, a platform he called “the enemy of the people.”

“I believe in it,” Donald Trump, 77, told CNBC. “Squawk Box” In response to a question that he had earlier considered TikTok a threat to national security.

“I believe it, and we have to go into privacy and make sure we’re protecting the privacy and data rights of the American people,” the presumptive Republican nominee said. “But, you know, we have the same problem with others; you have the same problem with Facebook and many other companies.”

Donald Trump stressed the difficulty of the decision to ban TikTok, noting that the widely used app’s absence could inadvertently benefit Facebook. The former president’s comments underscore complex considerations related to national security and competition among the major social media platforms.

He said, “To be honest, there are a lot of people on TikTok who love it. There are a lot of little kids on TikTok who would go crazy without it.” “There are a lot of users; that is, you know a lot of good, and a lot of bad with TikTok, but the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook big, and I But I consider myself to be an enemy of a lot of the media as well as the people.

“If you ban TikTok, Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook, you will be the big beneficiary,” he said. He argued that Facebook has been “very bad for the country”, especially in terms of elections.

Short, viral videos from TikTok, owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, took the world by storm, but raised concerns over user privacy. Some governments, including India, were concerned that Chinese ownership of the app (by ByteDance) could allow the Chinese government to access user data. Fearing this potential risk, India banned TikTok and over 100 other Chinese apps in June 2020 due to national security reasons.