In advance of the November elections in the United States, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has joined TikTok, the short video social media platform owned by China-based internet firm ByteDance, which he attempted to outlaw while in office.
Politico, which broke the story first, claimed that on Saturday night, he uploaded a launch video to his account. In the footage, Trump was seen introducing himself to spectators at a UFC bout in Newark, New Jersey.
By 0800 GMT, President Donald J. Trump’s account, @realdonaldtrump, had amassed over 450,000 followers.
A U.S. regulation that went into effect in April and required ByteDance to sell TikTok by January of next year or risk a ban is being contested in court by ByteDance. According to the White House, a ban on TikTok is not what it wants; rather, it wants Chinese-based ownership to terminate for national security reasons.
Trump own $10 million in cryptocurrency.
TikTok has maintained that it has taken significant steps to protect user privacy and that it will not provide Chinese authorities with user data from Americans.
When Trump was president in 2020, he tried to outlaw TikTok, but the courts stopped him. In March, he declared that while the platform posed a threat to national security, banning it would harm some youth and bolster Meta Platforms’ Facebook, which he has harshly denounced.
In February, the reelection campaign of President Joe Biden joined the app.