Trump slams Congress over TikTok sale

Former U.S. President Donald Trump condemned Congress’s efforts to pass legislation facilitating TikTok’s sale

Former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the U.S. Congress’s attempts to pass legislation for selling TikTok.

“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump said in a statement Monday.

Congress is considering legislation that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok. President Joe Biden announced that he would approve the law if it is passed.

Regarding the security of the TikTok application, Trump said, “It has good features and bad aspects,” and called Facebook “the enemy of the people.” Trump, who sees TikTok as a national security problem, argued that Facebook also threatens the U.S. government.

Following Trump’s comments, shares of Meta, the owner of Facebook, lost 4% of their value.

Social media companies are at the center of criticism ahead of the presidential elections in November.

In 2020, TikTok was on the verge of being banned in the U.S.

At that time, U.S. politicians expressed concerns that ByteDance could give the Chinese government data on TikTok users.

However, ByteDance argued that they would not do such a thing even if the Chinese government wanted to.

The presidential decree signed by Trump in 2020 forced ByteDance to sell TikTok, but it faced legal obstacles. TikTok is widespread in the U.S., especially among young people.

The bipartisan bill passed out of committee on a 50-to-zero vote last week and will head to the House floor this week. The bill must also be voted on in the Senate before being submitted to the White House for approval.

Source: Newsroom

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