As the White House clamped down on the ban, Biden took the lead in embracing TikTok

During the Lunar New Year, US President Joe Biden sent out New Year's greetings on the social media platform and also enjoyed TikTok. Biden made his TikTok debut on the evening of the 11th local time, and sent four short videos in 24 hours to campaign for the election, a time when netizens flocked to it, and it received more than 6 million views on the first day. Biden's move caused confusion and concern among some US politicians, after all, it was Biden who signed a bill that stipulated that US federal government employees were not allowed to use government agency equipment to use TikTok on the grounds of so-called national security.

Why is the US trying to block TikTok?

TikTok is wildly popular among young people around the world, and as of now, TikTok is far more popular among young people in the United States than local social media Instagram and Snapchat. Some U.S. IT industry representatives and political activists have raised concerns about TikTok's rapid growth for self-serving reasons, and have concocted nonsense claims that TikTok could pose a threat to national security.

TikTok has huge social and commercial influence overseas, and the US government has tried to suppress its development through administrative intervention in order to maintain the market share of its own Internet companies. On February 27, 2023, the White House issued a notice requiring government agencies to uninstall the TikTok app within 30 days, citing the need to maintain U.S. data security.

Is the White House TikTok crackdown lifted?

At a press conference at the White House after Biden revealed TikTok, a reporter asked "why the president allowed his campaign to operate on TikTok," and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby referred reporters to the Biden campaign. But Kirby said that from the NSC's perspective, "national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices have not changed, and the policy remains in effect."

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, also said he was concerned about the impact of the Biden campaign's decision to join TikTok on US national security: "I think we still need to find a way to follow India, which has banned TikTok." Several Republican lawmakers also criticized the Biden campaign's decision to join TikTok on national security grounds.

All along, the US government and some members of Congress have frequently cited "national security" as an excuse to suppress TikTok. Earlier, the Biden administration asked ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a US ban. It can be seen that today, the ban on TikTok suppression in the United States has not been lifted.

So why did Biden take to TikTok despite the ban?

Joe Biden's reelection campaign has joined TikTok in an attempt to appeal to younger voters as the 81-year-old president struggles to overcome concerns about his age, The Times of London reports. According to US media reports, the Biden campaign team has entered TikTok, and the TikTok account "bidenhq" operated by the team released its first video on the 11th local time, which is believed to be aimed at winning the vote of young voters. At the end of the video, Biden is asked whether he would vote for him or Trump, to which he laughs and says, "Are you kidding me?" before choosing himself.

Some analysts believe that the Biden team's "embrace" of TikTok is quite pragmatic, and the use of TikTok platform to attract young voters is part of the campaign strategy. TikTok, with its huge user base, has become a powerful campaign tool. TikTok has about 150 million U.S. users in 2022, and that number is still growing even under the ongoing crackdown by the U.S. government. TikTok's chief executive testified before the US Congress on January 31 that more than 170 million Americans use TikTok every month. From this point of view, Biden is also struggling for the 2024 US election.

With his front foot signing a bill banning government employees from using TikTok and his back foot "leading and turning" to embrace TikTok, Biden is really playing a good "double mark." Through this matter, it is not difficult to find that in the minds of American politicians, TikTok is actually no good or bad, good or evil, and their own interests are their final judgment criteria.