Trump White House debuts TikTok account ahead of possible ban: ‘I am your voice’
The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of the short video app’s more than 170 million US users to spread the messages of President Donald Trump.
The White House’s official account comes as a new deadline approaches for its parent company ByteDance to divest from its US operations or face a nationwide blackout in the country.
TikTok’s algorithm, which decides which videos users see next, is a key point of contention. Critics warn that the Chinese government could use the algorithm to influence public opinion in the US, which TikTok and ByteDance have always denied.
Trump has been working on a deal for US investors to buy the app from ByteDance.
The new account, @whitehouse, went live on Tuesday evening with an initial video showing footage of Trump as he declared: “I am your voice.”