Commentary: TikTok would be wise not to embrace Donald Trump too fervently

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SINGAPORE: Hours before a US law forcing Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban took effect on Sunday (Jan 19), American users attempting to access TikTok saw a popup message naming incoming US President Donald Trump.

It informed users that TikTok faced a ban in the US, but added: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution (…) Please stay tuned!”

It was Trump who first attempted to ban the app during his earlier term. However, Trump has vowed to “save” TikTok since a meeting with billionaire Jeff Yass several months before the 2024 election. Yass has a major stake in TikTok and is among the biggest Republican campaign contributors.

TikTok may have gone dark out of an abundance of caution. But Biden administration spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called it a “stunt” for TikTok to halt its US service before Trump takes office. The outgoing administration had already announced that it would not act to enforce the law, which took effect just one day before the end of Biden’s term.

Interrupting service surely got the attention of plenty of TikTok’s 170 million American users. As TikTok’s CEO, Chew Shou Zi, takes his seat among other tech titans invited to Trump’s inauguration, some users are celebrating President Trump as their champion for opposing the law outgoing President Joe Biden signed.

TRUMP TO THE RESCUE

By giving US users a taste of the shutdown and spotlighting its possible rescuer, TikTok seems to be casting Trump as the hero.

It reinforced that narrative when it began restoring service after Trump posted on Truth Social: “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security”.

Questions remain about whether such an executive order can stand against an act of Congress. It also remains to be seen if the United States – presumably the US government – can co-own TikTok, as Trump seemed to suggest in his post.

TikTok responded by thanking Trump for taking “a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship”, words that could be read as a slight to the overwhelming majority in Congress that passed the law and the unanimous Supreme Court that upheld it last week.

As users returned to TikTok, they saw a new popup message crediting the incoming president: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!”

Even if TikTok survives the ban intact, it would be wise to tread gently in US politics.

BIG TECH’S EMBRACE OF TRUMP

Though Mr Chew met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, he has not publicly embraced the incoming administration as openly as his peers.

Several tech firms have made token donations of US$1 million to the inauguration funds. Tesla CEO Elon Musk went much further, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to the president’s campaign, appearing at rallies, and bombarding his followers on X with pro-Trump posts. He will now head a new Department of Government Efficiency.

Trump threatened to imprison Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook banned him towards the end of his first term. The Meta CEO has changed his tune. Earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg announced that his platforms would end third-party fact-checking, echoing far-right critics who call the fact-checkers partisan.

In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Mr Zuckerberg made clear what he wants in return: He expressed optimism that the Trump administration would resist foreign efforts to regulate American big tech firms.

If Mr Chew manages to keep TikTok’s US service alive through diplomacy with the mercurial president – even after the president’s MAGA allies attacked him in Senate hearings – one could argue that it’s a wise move.

But Trump still faces opposition on this issue, even from some Republican lawmakers who are his avid supporters. They include Alabama senator Tom Cotton, who grilled Mr Chew about whether he is a Chinese Communist Party member in a Senate hearing last year. Over the weekend, Mr Cotton said there was no basis for delaying the ban’s enactment.

RISKS OF ASSOCIATING WITH TRUMP

Given the bigger picture, however, associations with Trump may eventually prove costly for TikTok. In bipartisan politics, today’s loser becomes tomorrow’s winner when voters find they didn’t get all they expected. 

Any honeymoon for the Trump administration will likely be brief. Trump is a uniquely polarising figure who has promised divisive actions, including mass deportations of migrants. Any backlash against him will likely be stronger than the usual pendulum swings in US politics.

It’s Trump’s final term; the US Constitution bars a third. Republicans narrowly won the presidency and both houses of Congress with promises to fix the economic woes of working-class voters. However, Republicans will have little opportunity to make headway on complex economic challenges before the 2026 midterm elections. 

Links with the Trump administration may soon carry more stigma than they already do, not only for politicians but for corporate leaders and their businesses. Social media users may prefer platforms free of such baggage.

RED HERRING

One alternative to TikTok is entirely new to Americans. Much is being made of the irony that they are opening accounts on Xiaohongshu, a TikTok-like app popular in China.

A generation of Americans who grew up with social media appears to have become cynical about the possibility of protecting their data. They are disregarding lawmakers’ warnings about an app with a Chinese parent company and signing up for one that is thoroughly Chinese-owned and controlled. 

Despite the warm welcome that some report, American users are unlikely to stay on an app where their influence may be weak. Undoubtedly, most already have accounts on Instagram and YouTube, which have their own short video services.

Users may not have the option of staying on Xiaohongshu. The same US law that specifically bans apps operated by ByteDance also has provisions applying to any app controlled by a foreign adversary.

ADDICTION ISN’T LOYALTY

The rapid ascents of Instagram and, later, TikTok showed us that new platforms could emerge.

That was a surprise to some. In the first decade of Facebook’s popularity, many considered its dominance a fact of life. Scholars had warned of “switching costs” – the hassle of migrating to a new platform – and “network effects” that make a platform more appealing and valuable as the number of users rises. But these obstacles have not proved insurmountable.

Young users embraced apps where their parents didn’t have accounts yet. And X showed us that older users also have a breaking point. Now that Musk has transformed himself and the former Twitter into right-wing favourites, millions of users have opened accounts on BlueSky, its newer rival.

Our avid use of digital platforms may not equate to loyalty. Big Tech firms and their leaders may be wise to keep Trump, or any political leader, at arm’s length lest partisan associations rub off and make them more vulnerable to competition when political tides turn.

Dr Mark Cenite is Associate Dean (Undergraduate Education) at Nanyang Technological University’s College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and teaches media law and artificial intelligence law at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.