- The Trump campaign is now running political ads on Facebook and Instagram that accuse TikTok of “spying” on users.
- The announcements, released on Friday, encourage users to sign a petition banning TikTok, the viral app that is raising national security concerns due to its ties to China through its parent company ByteDance.
- In recent weeks, the president and government officials have said they are considering banning TikTok in the U.S., where the app has an estimated user base of up to 80 million.
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While Donald Trump is considering banning TikTok, his political campaign began running ads on Facebook and Instagram accusing the China-based platform of “spying” on its users.
More than 100 iterations of ads were released on Friday encouraging Facebook users to sign a petition banning TikTok in the United States. The ads, first seen by New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz, appear when the United States government threatens to urge a nationwide ban on the viral video-sharing app for its ties to China.
Facebook removed a version of the anti-TikTok ad on Friday night. The ad in question includes a graphic with “yes” and “no” check boxes, which appears to be a violation of Facebook’s policy against ads with “nonexistent functionality.” Facebook did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Another anti-TikTok ad tells users: “Protect our children from China.”
TikTok’s roots in China, where the app’s parent company, ByteDance is located, have long raised questions from US lawmakers and security experts about how much access and influence the Chinese government has over data from users and content moderation. Concerns about the TikTok-China connection have soared in recent weeks after India decided to put in place its own ban on the app earlier this month.
Political campaign ads also claim that “TikTok has been shocked red-handed in monitoring what’s on his phone’s clipboard.” The indictment is based on a March investigation that shows how apps can access content stored on the clipboard, the copy and paste function, of users’ iPhones and iPads. TikTok was just one of dozens of apps caught spying on iPhone clipboards, including LinkedIn and Fox News. Since then ByteDance has said it will stop accessing the clipboard content.
Facebook ad library
In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has also run ads against Twitter and Snapchat, alleging that they are “trying to silence” the president.
In early July, both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo publicly said they were considering a TikTok ban in the United States: Trump said the ban would be a way to punish China for its role in the coronavirus pandemic. While Pompeo cited national security concerns. . On Thursday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters that he expected TikTok “to withdraw from the Chinese-owned holding company and operate as an independent American company.”
Since TikTok launched in the U.S. in 2018, the app has been able to ignore lawmakers’ calls for investigations and warnings from homeland security experts. Most recently, TikTok launched a content advisory council to guide policy changes, and appointed a U.S.-based CEO in June to demonstrate that he was distancing himself from his Chinese roots.
But TikTok has also faced the Trump campaign for reasons beyond its ties to China. Swarms of TikTok teens and K-pop fans were credited last month with mass registration for tickets to a major Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In lieu of the grand return announced by the Trump campaign, attendance at the rally was considerably lacking.
TikTok’s reported influence at the Tulsa rally demonstrates how the app has become a powerhouse of social media, establishing itself as a staple of Internet culture and social interaction for Generation Z. The app has more than 2 1 billion global downloads and an estimated user base in the US as high as 80 million. Outperform US-based apps with younger audiences like Snapchat and Instagram, in both new downloads and time spent.
The looming threat of the demise of TikTok from the US has already signaled panic among users and creators, and has led to tech companies’ attempts to capitalize on the mayhem to attract loyal followers of the app to their competing platforms.
