“If you want to save TikTok, elect Trump.”
Trump emphasizes pledge to ‘save TikTok’ during election period
As the sale period approaches on January 19th next year,
The specific plan is unknown… Possibility of extension of sale deadline
[이데일리 정다슬 기자] There have been reports that President-elect Donald Trump, a TikToker with 14.4 million followers, is trying to overturn the ban on social media service (SNS) TikTok. As this news broke, the stock price of Snap, a competitor of TikTok, fell 5.85% on the 12th (local time).
The Washington Post (WP) reported this today, citing an anonymous source. According to the New York Times, Caroline Ravit, a spokeswoman for the Trump-JD Vance transition team, was asked whether the TikTok ban would be overturned: “The American people re-elected President Trump by an overwhelming margin, and he has the power to deliver on the promises he made on the campaign trail.” “He will keep his promise,” he said.
Last April, the U.S. Congress passed the ‘Act to Protect the United States from Foreign Hostile Control Applications’ (TikTok Compulsory Sale Act). This is due to concerns that TikTok could transmit Americans’ personal information to the Chinese government and manipulate American public opinion through algorithms. Accordingly, TikTok must find a new owner who is not headquartered in China by January 19 of next year. If you fail to do so, you will no longer be able to do business in the United States. January 19th is also the day before President-elect Trump’s term begins.
President-elect Trump also criticized TikTok as a national security issue during his first administration. However, he turned his stance 180 degrees last March, publicly expressing his opposition to the TikTok forced sale law. At the time, President-elect Trump said, “Honestly, there are a lot of young people who would be crazy without TikTok. There are many good and bad things about TikTok, but what I dislike is that without TikTok, Facebook, the ‘enemy of the people,’ will grow even bigger.”
He also said in a TikTok video last September, “If you want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump.” Two anonymous sources said Trump sees his popularity on TikTok as a political asset.
The New York Times (NYT) paid attention to the meeting between President-elect Trump and Jeff Yass, a major investor in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, in March. At the time, President-elect Trump denied that he had discussed TikTok during his meeting with Yass, but the NYT also explained that Yass was a major supporter of Club for Growth, which is lobbying to save TikTok.
According to anonymous sources, TikTok attempted to reach out to the Republican Party and the Trump campaign through Tony Sayeg, who was the Treasury Undersecretary for Public Policy during Trump’s first administration. Sayeg is currently in charge of Jeff Yass’ Susquehanna public relations and also participated in this year’s TikTok strategy meeting. He is also from Fox News and has a close personal relationship with the Trump family.
Public opinion regarding the TikTok forced sale law is also changing. According to the Pew Research Center, support for banning TikTok fell from 50% last year to 32% this summer.
The problem is how to overturn a law that has already gone into effect.
To completely stop the TikTok suspension and sale, Congress must repeal this law. However, considering that this law was passed with bipartisan agreement, it is not easy for this law to be repealed in the short term. .
They could recommend that the Attorney General refrain from enforcing the law, but that would require persuading technology companies like Apple and Google to do so. This is because the TikTok Mandatory Sale Act stipulates that if TikTok’s owner does not change after January 19, a fine will be imposed on the app store company that distributes TikTok.
Another way is for ByteDance to take steps to believe that it has sufficiently excluded TikTok from the Chinese government’s surveillance network. This is because the TikTok Compulsory Act allows the U.S. government to extend the sale date by 90 days if it believes there is significant progress toward the sale.
WP also believed that the ‘Project Texas’ alternative proposed by ByteDance to the Joe Biden administration could resurface in 2022. This proposal would allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States, but would hand over much of its authority over human resources and technology to the U.S. government. At the time, the Biden administration rejected this, but the explanation is that the Trump administration may accept it.
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