Trump says children would 'go crazy' if they didn't have TikTok and a ban would ... trends now
Former President Donald Trump detailed why he had changed his position on banning TikTok, despite widespread support for a ban from members of Congress.
The former president outlined his thoughts about the social media company on CNBC on Monday morning, days after he publicly opposed a ban.
‘Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,’ he said during an interview on CNBC. 'There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users, there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok.'
Donald Trump said he was opposed to the bill from Congress that would ban TikTok from the United States
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company subject to the Chinese government.
Trump reiterated his concerns that a TikTok ban would only make social media platforms like Facebook more powerful.
‘The thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media,’ Trump said.
He said that he still had national security and privacy concerns about TikTok but that he also had the same concerns about American companies.
‘I do believe that, and we have to very much go in to privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights,’ he said.
Trump argued that Facebook and other American social media platforms also shared data with China.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer and founder of Facebook Inc., speaks during an event at the company's headquarters
Members of Congress continue pushing for a TikTok ban, warning the platform is bad for national security
‘They’re not so American, they deal in China and if China wants anything from them they will give it so that’s a national security also,’ he said.
Trump said he had concerns about Facebook, particularly after CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife donated at least $400 million to non-profit organizations who helped fund upgrades to election systems to allow voting by mail and change
