TikTok fans rage against Donald Trump threats of US ban
What you need to know:
- American comedian Elijah Daniels used Twitter to bid farewell to his TikTok followers.
- Twenty TikTok stars posted an open letter to Trump on Medium arguing against banning the app.
- Their combined followings top 100 million people.
San Francisco
A TikTok star pounds a beat as she weaves lyrics mocking the idea of US President Donald Trump banning the short-form video sharing app.
The “Trump Freestyle” post Monday by @maya2960 quickly racked up more than a million views and 500,000 “likes” on the popular platform owned by China-based ByteDance.
“Didn’t think this through, little Donny, did you? Not much of a businessman,” she rapped. “You can ban this app, there’ll be a new one. There’s supply where there’s demand.”
The lyrics included a promise that TikTok users would not go down without a fight, citing First Amendment protections against government censorship of free speech.
Another video snippet racking up views was captioned “Me trying to convince Trump to let us keep TikTok” and showed a woman colouring her face orange and building a brick wall.
Shout out to Trump
American comedian Elijah Daniels used Twitter to bid farewell to his TikTok followers, giving “a big shout out to Donald Trump for mishandling the entire pandemic” but then taking away an app raising people’s spirits.
Twenty TikTok stars, whose combined followings top 100 million people, posted an open letter to Trump on Medium arguing against banning the app.
“A virtual world dominated by hate on Twitter is nothing compared to the snapshots of joy and comedy on TikTok,” read the open letter. “So instead of eliminating TikTok, why not use this opportunity to spin off TikTok US in an IPO or sell it to a US company — let capitalism solve this issue, not the state.
‘Out of business’
“Trump gave TikTok six weeks to sell its US operations to an American firm, saying Monday it would be “out of business” otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.
“It’s got to be an American company... it’s got to be owned here,” Trump said. “We don’t want to have any problem with security.”
Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.
But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share millions of Americans’ personal data with Chinese intelligence.
Trump gave ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.
Whatever the price is, he said, “The United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we’re making it possible”.
