Source: AFP
Former US president and current White House candidate Donald Trump has joined TikTok, posting his first video on the wildly popular social media app he once tried to ban while in office.
Reaching out to younger voters as he seeks re-election in November, Trump released a 13-second clip on Saturday night showing him in his usual blue suit and red tie attending an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout in Newark, New Jersey.
In the video, which features blaring music, Trump is introduced by UFC CEO Dana White and leans into the camera saying, “It’s an honor.”
Trump greets people in the UFC arena and ends the clip by saying, “It’s been a good ride, right?”
As of noon Sunday, Trump already had two million followers on his @realDonaldTrump account.
In April, President Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok in the United States if Bytedance’s Chinese owner doesn’t find a buyer for the app within a year.
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US officials have expressed concern that China’s government is using TikTok to harvest Americans’ personal data for other nefarious purposes.
The Biden campaign this year also joined TikTok, which has more than 170 million users in the United States.
While in office, Trump tried to ban TikTok on national security grounds by executive order, but the effort bogged down in the courts when a federal judge questioned how the move would affect free speech and blocked the initiative.
In early May, TikTok and Bytedance filed a legal challenge against the law that would have banned the app.
ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as the only option to avoid the ban.
Source: AFP