At war with Facebook, Donald Trump wants to protect TikTok in the United States

Is Donald Trump addicted to Tiktok? He, who wanted to ban Chinese apps in the United States during his tenure as head of the country, has apparently changed his mind.

“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck (sic) will double their income. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last elections, to do better. They are the true enemies of the people!”, wrote the Republican candidate for the White House on his own social network, Truth Social. The statement directly targets a proposal by a group of American elected officials who want to ban Chinese social networks from the country, fearing threats of interference and espionage on the part of the Chinese government.

In conflict with Facebook since 2021

If the American candidate prefers the Chinese network to the American giant, it is because it has been in open conflict with Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg for many years. In January 2021, his Facebook and Instagram accounts owned by Meta were suspended following the attack on the Capitol. The American company finally reinstated the profile of the former US president in January 2023 after a request from Donald Trump himself. “People should be able to hear what political figures have to say so they can make informed choices”, announced Nick Clegane, Head of International Affairs at Meta Group. This compensation does not prevent the Republican candidate from regularly confronting Mark Zuckerberg in his speeches, regularly giving him the nickname “Zuckerschmuck”, which can be translated as “Zucker-eshole”.

If on the surface the former American president still harbors hostility towards the social network with 2,989 users and its creator, the candidate may still need it to win the White House in November 2024. During his previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump used Facebook as a central tool to sway American voters. The social network allowed his campaign team to fundraise and raise large sums of money.