- Angry TikTok users rated-bombed Trump’s official 2020 campaign app 2020 to the point where Apple had to reset the app’s star rating, TechCrunch reports.
- The review bombings – where users post a flood of negative reviews – began in July, but intensified in August around the time Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. companies from doing business with parent company TikTok, ByteDance .
- Apple restored the star rating on August 14, a day before Trump signed a second executive order stating that TikTok would sell its US operations.
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TikTok users left so many one-star reviews about Donald Trump’s campaign app in 2020 that Apple had to reset the app’s rating, TechCrunch reports.
According to Sensor Tower data, TikTok fans, apparently angry about Trump’s attacks on the popular video-sharing platform, posted reviews saying that the Trump 2020 app was buggy, glitchy, and that it stole personal information . The latest complaint appears to be a satirical whip at the Trump administration’s claims TikTok is losing U.S. user data to the Chinese government.
The protest-bombing protest seems to go back to July, when Bloomberg reported TikTok users – galvanized by popular user DeJuan Booker – began leaving negative reviews to protest the Trump administration’s growing hostility to the app. The number of one-star ratings of the app jumped between July 7 and 9 from 20,500 to 216,500.
The review bombardment picked up steam again around the time the FS TikTok officially sanctioned with two executive orders. On August 7, Trump barred American companies from doing business with Chinese parent company TikTok ByteDance on the grounds that it posed a national security threat. Trump followed this up with a second executive order on August 15, saying that TikTok should sell its American company.
Apple restored the star rating of the Trump 2020 app on August 14, and it now stands at 3.8.
TikTok activists have previously been a thorn in the side of the Trump 2020 campaign. In June, TikTok users and K-Pop fans claimed to have attended Trump’s comeback Oklahoma rally by asking not to see tickets online then again.
