TikTok executives are hoping that Donald Trump will make social media great again, with the platform’s CEO reportedly meeting the president-elect in person on Monday.
Shou Zi Chew headed to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to try and persuade him to seek a reprieve for the popular video app that is currently set to be banned in the US from January 19th, 2025 – the day before Trump’s inauguration.
In addition to Chew’s meeting with the incoming 47th president, the company has filed an emergency application at the US Supreme Court petitioning it to block the law that establishes the ban.
The Clock is TikToking…
The pre-scheduled face-to-face meeting between Trump and Chew was initially reported by CNN, which was tipped off by “a person familiar with the meeting”.
It is understood that Chew has been making great efforts to secure an audience with the president-elect, with the ban deadline now little more than one month away.
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It is, however, a not unexpected meeting of minds. Trump was vocal in his support for TikTok during his campaign to return to the White House, telling followers in a video on his Truth Media platform that: “For all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote Trump”.
Chew was given further cause for cheer with the subject of TikTok’s future arising in Trump’s first major news conference since the election on Monday:
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it.” – Donald Trump
Why is Trump for TikTok?
Roll back half a decade to Donald Trump’s first term as president, and his views on TikTok appeared to be the polar opposite.
He and his government spearheaded a potential ban on the platform, citing security concerns around the Chinese-owned app.
Fast forward to 2024, though, and Trump has another social media service in his crosshairs – Facebook. The president-elect branded the Meta-owned platform as “very bad for our country” and an “enemy of the people” earlier this year, after it banned him in the wake of the January 6th Capitol riot.
A ban on TikTok in the US would undoubtedly be a boost for Mark Zuckerberg and could pave the way for a Meta ‘Super App’.
TikTok’s Supreme Court Press
TikTok’s two-pronged approach – the second being its application to the Supreme Court – to try and get the ban overturned was prompted by a failure earlier this month to convince the US appeals court to overturn the ban.
The document filed by TikTok Inc and ByteDance Ltd calls the ban a “massive and unprecedented speech restriction”. It leans on the contemporaneous timing of the ban with Trump’s inauguration, saying it will “silence the speech of [TikTok] and the many Americans who use the platform to communicate about politics, commerce, arts, and other matters of public concern”.
“The court’s flawed legal rationales would open the door to upholding content-based speech bans in contexts far different than this one. Fear-mongering about national security cannot obscure the threat that the Act itself poses to all Americans.”
The allusion of TikTok as a ‘speech platform’ has been a running theme of the company’s resistance to a ban that it says encroaches First Amendment rights. It’s original appeal application in September said that the law is an “extraordinary intrusion on free speech rights”.
