In this photo illustration, the download page for the TikTok app is displayed on an Apple iPhone on Aug. 7, 2020 in Washington, D.C. President-elect Donald Trump used TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign. (Photo Illustration by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The looming ban originated out of concern that American users’ data is gathered by the Chinese government, but MAGA Republicans and content creators who spoke with Fox Digital balked at the reasoning as insincere.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
"Heck, we even have records of Airbnb selling American data to the Chinese Communist Party. So there doesn't seem to be a lot of willingness to truly protect the cyber and personal information security of American citizens from the government en masse, it seems to only be focused on TikTok as a platform itself," Brown continued.
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President-elect Donald Trump's supporters praising TikTok comes after the former and upcoming president made big inroads with Gen Z, especially young male voters, in the last cycle. A Fox News Voter Survey published after the election found that men aged 18-44 supported Trump at 53% compared to Vice President Kamala Harris at 45%.
Participants hold signs in support of TikTok outside the U.S. Capitol Building on March 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Ahead of the new year, Sen. Mitch McConnell filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging justices to reject ByteDance’s request to delay the ban.
"The topsy-turvy idea that TikTok has an expressive right to facilitate the CCP censorship regime is absurd," McConnell’s counsel Michael A. Fragoso wrote in the friend of the court brief. "Would Congress have needed to allow Nikita Khrushchev to buy CBS and replace The Bing Crosby Show with Alexander Nevsky?"
While former Vice President Mike Pence’s nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom, filed a similar amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court last month.
"The CCP does not respect free speech, either in China or in America. The First Amendment is not, and should not be read as, a means of granting the Chinese government the power to do what the American government could not: manipulate what Americans can say and hear," the group wrote.
Advancing American Freedom President Tim Chapman told Fox News Digital that Trump's first administration "had this right the first time" when Trump initially worked to ban TikTok before the former and upcoming president reversed his opinion on the app.
"The Trump administration had this right the first time when they planned to ban TikTok through executive authority for the very same concerns that exist today. Political strategists salivating over clicks and followers does not mean that the national security implications have changed," Chapman said.
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Emily Wilson, political commentator and host of podcast "Emily Saves America," told Fox News Digital that she can see both sides of the argument surrounding the looming TikTok ban but that instituting a ban would be "hypocritical against free speech."
"The TikTok ban is controversial, I see two sides to it. I see it as an app that’s very left leaning and consumes way too much of people’s time but it is sometimes the only place I get info about stories that should be breaking world wide. At the same time it can be dangerous. It can radicalize young people. One day you wake up on TikTok and young Americans are saying they’re supportive of Osama bin Laden," Wilson told Fox Digital.
Then-former President Donald Trump dances as he leaves the stage after speaking alongside former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard during a town hall meeting in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Aug. 29, 2024. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
"Today, President Donald J. Trump has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok’s imminent shutdown, and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025," Trump spokesman and incoming White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital last month.
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"President Donald J. Trump (‘President Trump’) is the 45th and soon to be the 47th President of the United States of America," the brief states. "On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions."
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman, Paul Steinhauser and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/maga-republicans-defend-tiktok-conservative-platform-fate-hangs-balance-supreme-court