How Donald Trump Corners TikTok Users

Illustration (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The President of the United States (US) Donald Trump is acting up again. Now he is launching an advertising campaign on the social media networks Facebook and Instagram which prohibits using the creative video application TikTok.

Quoting the Business Insider page, Sunday July 19, the ad has a message warning that "TikTok is spying on you!" and say Americans deserve privacy.

It is known, Trump's ad campaign was first discovered by ABC News media reporter Will Steakin and New York Times Taylor Lorenz and shared on the microblogging network Twitter.

NEW: Trump running anti-TikTok ads on Facebook, urging supporters to sign a petition to ban the app pic.twitter.com/hblOeUprar

- Will Steakin (@wsteaks) July 18, 2020

Trump now running anti-TikTok Facebook / Instagram ads accusing the company of spying on users pic.twitter.com/dfHuSVpciL

- Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) July 17, 2020

"TikTok has been caught off guard by monitoring what's on your phone's Clipboard," says the text in the ad, and points to a security issue that Apple iOS 14 has also found in other apps like AccuWeather, AliExpress, Call of Duty Mobile, Google News, Overstock , and Patreon, as well as LinkedIn and Reddit.

The ad asked people to sign a petition to support a campaign banning TikTok. However, according to Lorenz, the link goes to a survey that collects a person's information to add to mailing lists (online discussion groups).

"This ad is essentially fueling anti-TikTok / China sentiment and misleading users to increase Trump's mailing list," Lorenz said.

Bloomberg also reports that this ad campaign is known to have been paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, and has a target age of 18 to 64.

White House vs TikTok

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the government was considering banning Chinese social media apps like TikTok, because of security concerns that hurt not only the country but its users as well.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said recently that the White House could take action against Chinese applications such as TikTok within weeks, as they are under review for national security risks.

For information, tensions between the US and China are currently high, because the Trump administration continues to blame the country for the spread of the coronavirus. There's another fact that K-Pop fans used TikTok to screw up the Trump campaign in Tulsa, Oklahoma not long ago.

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