Despite trying to ban it, Trump just joined TikTok
Former President Donald Trump is now on TikTok, a move he announced it in an unsurprisingly weird way.
In a video posted onto TikTok on Saturday from the verified account @realDonaldTrump, UFC CEO Dana White introduced Trump, saying "The president is now on TikTok."
"It’s my honor," Trump said, which is pretty odd considering the politician and convicted felon tried to ban the app while he was in office. The rest of the video pans across different shots of the crowd at the UFC fight in Newark, New Jersey to the tune of "American Bad Ass" by Kid Rock.
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"The campaign is playing on all fields," an adviser to Trump’s campaign told Politico. "Being able to do outreach on multiple platforms and outlets is important and this is just one of many ways we’re going to reach out to voters. TikTok skews towards a younger audience."
Both presidential candidates — Trump and President Joe Biden — have attempted to ban the app. In April, Biden signed a bill into law that could effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. unless ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, sells its shares in the app. When Trump was in office, he issued an executive order to stop new users from downloading TikTok, but courts blocked his attempts.
Despite this, both Biden and Trump's campaigns are on the app themselves.
Topics Politics
Christianna Silva is a senior culture reporter covering social platforms and the creator economy, with a focus on the intersection of social media, politics, and the economic systems that govern us. Since joining Mashable in 2021, they have reported extensively on meme creators, content moderation, and the nature of online creation under capitalism.
Before joining Mashable, they worked as an editor at NPR and MTV News, a reporter at Teen Vogue and VICE News, and as a stablehand at a mini-horse farm. You can follow her on Bluesky @christiannaj.bsky.social and Instagram @christianna_j.
