With few days left, Donald Trump is reaching out to Supreme Court for saving TikTok or lookout for an opportunity for negotiating an alternative solution for keeping the app available for the people of America.
He has filed an amicus brief with Supreme Court calling for stay of execution for the app so that Trump can use his deal making expertise for arranging a deal for appeasement of both sides.
As per the brief, it states Donald Trump as one of the most influential and powerful user of social media in history which places him at a unique platform for assessing the threats and value of TikTok personally.
As of now, Donald Trump has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he communicates actively, which allows him to evaluate importance of TikTok as a distinct channel for expression of freedom which includes core political speech.
Donald Trump feels that he is well aware about the app and has on several occasions stated that he likes the TikTok app and is one of the big stars on the app therefore Trump is now looking to extend the deadline so that he can strike a new TikTok deal. It was Trump who came up with the idea of banning TikTok in 2020 when he stated that since it was a Chinese app it posed threat to national security. It had become a bipartisan issue with Congress voting to ban the app last year. Even though it faced a legal challenge but this was confirmed by supreme court.
His stance changed after he joined the TikTok app when he was campaigning for the President position last year and ended up amassing near about 15 million followers on the app.
This app has attracted interests of several US investors as its valuation runs into tens of billions of dollars. Tik Tok has played a dominant role in spreading narratives which is not just limited to US politics. It has influenced German state elections also in the past which led to the rise of far right wing leaders and also affected candidates across France, Sweden and Poland.
Senators across US have been against TikTok as the platform which popularizes content which might not be in the interest of the administration such as wars in Palestine or Ukraine. Other platforms like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels stand to benefit if TikTok gets banned. Still there is no guarantee that users would continue using TikTok.
In case TikTok does not get sold by April 5, the original law banning it worldwide would again go into effect. Order of Trump came after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a federal law which required ByteDance to divest or get banned in January. After the ruling, TikTok went dark for US users and came back online after Trump vowed to stall the ban.
Investor consortium are willing to offer $20 billion in cash for U.S. platform and in case they get successful then they intend to redesign it with blockchain technology they say would be providing users with control over their online data.
Some companies are even willing to offer $30 billion for TikTok. Even Microsoft has been eyeing this app. Trump’s former Secretary too has been in the bone for contention. Trump has stated that TikTok deadline could be extended further if required. He has previously proposed terms in which the US would be having a 50% stake in the joint venture. The administration has not provided details on what type of deal would entail.
There have been no public comments by ByteDance and TikTok till yet. It is still not clear if ByteDance has changed its position on selling TikTok which it stated early last year it does not plan to do.
