A ban on TikTok, the social media video app that is used by around half of Americans, has become a contentious issue as President-elect Donald Trump gathers his White House team and chooses his Cabinet candidates.
The future of TikTok in the United States is now in doubt due to this division and a lack of clarity regarding the administration’s priorities and current stance on a ban.
President Joe Biden’s April proposal, which would ban TikTok if it doesn’t sell to an American owner by the time Trump enters office, is the subject of the company’s federal court defense.
The fact that Trump has changed his public position on TikTok by announcing Cabinet candidates with a wide range of opinions about the app has further complicated matters for the service.
He attempted to outright outlaw it in 2020 with an executive order, but it was overturned by the courts. Teen TikTok users at the time said they reserved seats they didn’t plan to occupy at one of Trump’s rallies in order to orchestrate a smaller turnout. Trump said in March that he thinks TikTok poses a threat to national security, but he also claimed that a ban would benefit Meta’s Facebook, which he refers to as the people’s enemy.
Trump launched his own TikTok account in June, and despite not posting since Election Day, it currently has more than 14.6 million followers—more than any other American politician. He said that if elected, he will save TikTok in America in a September Truth Social post.
Trump might be TikTok’s greatest chance to stay out of trouble if he keeps his word. However, that’s not a given. The majority of Trump’s Cabinet members and other administration choices who have discussed the app’s future have firmly supported a ban, with those who have sizable TikTok and other social media followings opposing one.
According to Project 2025, the conservative playbook that outlines the administration’s intentions, TikTok is a Chinese espionage weapon that ought to be prohibited. Brendan Carr, Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission, stated in Project 2025 that one of his top priorities is regulating big tech, which includes outlawing TikTok.
After Project 2025, which was spearheaded by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, became the focus of Democratic accusations throughout his campaign, Trump disavowed the initiative. However, according to a person familiar with the matter, at least three of his staff members wrote or contributed to portions of Project 2025, and his transition staffers are being pulled from its personnel database.
“TikTok and other social media platforms are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings,” argues Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts in the foreword to Project 2025. The continuation of this widespread child abuse is prohibited under federal policy.
Another creator of Project 2025 is John Ratcliffe, Trump’s choice to lead the CIA, whose nomination needs Senate confirmation. He intends to invest even more money in opposing China. In 2022, Ratcliffe told Fox Business that TikTok poses a threat to national security and concurred with the host that the United States need to ban the app.
The majority of Trump supporters who are against TikTok have pointed to allegations that the Chinese government controls American users, which TikTok refutes. While its supporters contend that such data is available with or without TikTok, politicians from both parties have also called the app a national security danger and a means for the Chinese government to obtain information about Americans.
President-elect JD Vance, who has over 2 million followers, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who has only posted one video (following the popular day in the life format in October) and has 36,000 followers, are two members of Trump’s incoming administration who have become rising TikTok stars despite some of their calls to ban the app. Leavitt, however, has also criticized the platform.
I can tell you that, as a member of Generation Z in America, all of my friends, coworkers, and previous classmates use TikTok. Leavitt stated last December on Fox Business that it is the primary news source for most American youngsters and that it is currently the worst thing in our culture.
She made reference to the Chinese Communist Party, saying, “The CCP owns it.” They are promoting algorithms that are highly detrimental to today’s youth’s ideology and intellectual curiosity.
On his show in April 2023, Sebastian Gorka, a Newsmax anchor and the president’s future deputy assistant, called TikTok a CCP tool, a means of gathering information from Americans, particularly children, and using it for the benefit of the biggest communist state in the world.
He noted that others, particularly on the right, want to outlaw it.
Former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s candidate for director of national intelligence with over a million TikTok followers, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s option for secretary of health and human services with over three million followers, are both awaiting Senate approval to join his Cabinet. Both of them have openly opposed the legislation that would either require TikTok to be sold or result in a ban in the United States.
Be assured that the TikTok ban has nothing to do with China collecting your personal information. Kennedy wrote on Xin April that it’s a smoke screen and that he will sue to overturn the prohibition on constitutional grounds.
Kennedy continued by writing, “Congress and the administration don’t understand that TikTok is an entrepreneurial platform for thousands of American young people.” He also mentioned that TikTok isn’t even majority Chinese-owned and that U.S. data is taken outside of the app.
He wrote, “They want to screw them over just so they can act tough on China.”
On the grounds of free speech and civil freedoms, Gabbard told podcast host Joe Roganin May that she was against the bill that would force a sale. She claimed that it would grant the president the authority to declare a nation a foreign opponent and to ban any app in which the nation held a majority stake.
She said that they might be targeting people they can’t really manipulate and coerce into completing their task for them.
Kennedy also discussed the legislation with TikTok users during an in-stream on the platform in June, describing it as a violation of free speech and a seizure of private property, and called it perverse, twisted, and unconstitutional. According to him, TikTok marketing and monetized content should be used to support young people’s entrepreneurial endeavors rather than discourage them.
I have a TikTok account. For me, being able to interact with others on TikTok is crucial. According to Kennedy, there is a lot of information on TikTok that I disagree with, but that is the essence of democracy. He expressed his disapproval of the government’s decision to outlaw the Russian propaganda network RT during the same appearance.
With 1.1 million TikTok followers, TV personality Mehmet Oz—who was appointed by Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—uses the platform’s TikTok Shop function to get paid by a company he advises for health and wellness products he promotes.
Trump has stated that Vivek Ramaswamy, who has over 855,000 TikTok followers, will collaborate with Elon Musk, the owner of X, in newly established government efficiency advisory positions. When Ramaswamy conducted his own presidential campaign in 2023, he made a lot of mistakes on TikTok. At the suggestion of notorious boxer and YouTuber Jake Paul, Ramaswamy joined TikTok, which he had previously referred to as “digital fentanyl,” in between two campaign rallies in Iowa.
Although he has persisted in stating that the app may have a concerning effect on young teens, Ramaswamy admitted that it was kind of an outdated move to declare that there was a whole way of communication with young people that he was going to shut down.
Musk is against a ban despite not having a public account. Even while a ban on TikTok might help the X platform, I don’t think it should be implemented in the USA, Musk wrote in April. It would be against freedom of speech and expression to do so. America does not stand for that.
Since the election, TikTok CEO Shou Chew has contacted Musk to get information about Trump’s administration and tech policies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Despite Trump’s statement that they will work to educate the Office of Management and Budget, Musk and Ramaswamy do not require Senate confirmation because their jobs are not official government ones.
Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s new national security advisor, supported the bill that would force TikTok to sell and pushed for a ban. Waltz told Fox News that the Biden campaign should be humiliated after it joined TikTok in February. He proposed using TikTok to stage electoral meddling by the Chinese Communist Party.
“A ban is long overdue,” Waltz stated. Our biggest enemy should not be able to access the data of 150 million Americans.
Since TikTok is really a spyware program, why is it acceptable to prohibit it from all government devices but allowing it to be installed on our children’s phones and track everything they view? In July 2023, Waltz asked on Fox Business. We shouldn’t be permitting this now, just as we wouldn’t have during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and Trump’s choice for secretary of state, has been criticizing TikTok ever since the app originally combined with Musical.ly in 2019. He co-introduced legislation to ban TikTok from government devices in 2021 and in all of the U.S. in 2022, supported Trump s executive order to ban TikTok and called the legislation that would force a sale to an American owner a huge step toward confronting Beijing s malign influence.
Rubio stated that he would respect Trump on TikTok after his election, but he was still worried about the vulnerability it presents.
Rubio stated that since he is the president, he has the authority to carry out his wishes.
In late 2022, Trump s pick for homeland security secretary, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, and his choice for interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, bothbanned TikTokfrom state-owned devices.
In an interview with Fox News in March, Noem said TikTok is owned by the Chinese Community Party. Their No. 1 desire is to destroy America, so that is why we should be alarmed at the amount of influence they have in this country. She said TikTok was released at the same time as the Covid-19 pandemic was (it was actually released in the U.S. in August 2018) to influence our youth.
Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., Trump s pick for labor secretary, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., his choice for ambassador to the United Nations, both voted in favor of the bill that would force a sale to an American owner.
I have consistently said that Tik Tok is a national security threat,Stefanik said in a statement in March. We cannot allow our adversaries to build an arsenal of data on American citizens that can be used to exploit and weaponize them.
Former Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., Trump s pick for veterans affairs secretary,told Newsmaxin March 2023 that he opposed TikTok s Chinese ownership but that the legislative path to ban it was a tough decision, creating a potential path to government overreach. We really don t need the government getting into that, and that s the problem, Collins said.
Trump s choice for surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a family and emergency medicine doctor and Fox News medical contributor, has personally advocated for a ban not just on TikTok but on all social media for children.
In my opinion, social media should be banned to all teens and young children, because it s done nothing but harm, she said on Fox News.
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