President-elect Donald Trump will no doubt be tougher on the world stage than President Joe Biden ever dreamed of being, but that doesn’t mean his ego won’t still get in the way from time to time. His pandering to TikTok is one example.
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has until Sunday to sell TikTok in order for the app to remain in U.S. app stores, conditions set by bipartisan legislation passed last year. ByteDance is aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, and TikTok functions as Chinese spyware that circumvents app store protections. ByteDance has used the app to track the location of journalists, about which the people behind the app lied.
TikTok has needed to be sold off from Chinese ownership or banned, something Trump rightly recognized up until last year. That was when, as the bill was being considered, Trump flipped on the matter while complaining that it would make Facebook and Mark “Zuckerschmuck” double their business. Trump then joined TikTok during the presidential campaign, boasting about his follower count and views on the app and asking, “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”
Trump is now reportedly trying to scheme up ways to save TikTok from its self-imposed shutdown (ByteDance refuses to sell), including considering trying to use an executive order to suspend the law that was passed by Congress. Trump has even invited the head of TikTok to sit on the dais at his inauguration next week.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Trump’s pandering to TikTok is embarrassing, and his desire to find a workaround to allow the app to continue to operate in the United States in its current state is shameful. Chinese-owned TikTok has proven itself both a national security threat and a force of cultural decay that dumbs children down with propaganda and an algorithm that promotes anti-social behavior and outright criminal acts. There is no reason TikTok should be operating in the U.S. as it is or that the incoming president should be fighting to save it.
This is Trump managing to find a way to be even softer on China than Biden (who signed the divestment law), all because he likes how high the engagement numbers go on his TikTok posts. If this is how easy it is for foreign adversaries such as the CCP-aligned ByteDance to get in Trump’s good graces, then his second term could go much worse than his first.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
