Dear reader, I am exhausted. Over the past few days, the House and Senate passed a massive foreign aid package that also forces TikTok to divest from its China-based owner ByteDance and find a new American owner—or else be banned nationwide. President Joe Biden signed that bill into law, and TikTok has threatened to sue the government, calling the law “unconstitutional.”
Weirdly, Biden hasn’t had much to say about it over the past few days. But his campaign is still posting on TikTok anyway.
Let’s talk about it.
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Biden’s Posting Through It
Barely an hour after the Senate passed its TikTok bill Tuesday night, Biden’s reelection campaign was posting new content to the platform. In a video posted around 10 pm ET, Biden appears with a labor group, smiling ear to ear to a round of applause.
If the Biden team was hoping no one would notice, it didn’t work. A majority of the comments on that video begged Biden not to sign the TikTok bill.
“You just guaranteed Trumps win with the tiktok ban ❤️,” one user wrote.
“KEEP TIK TOK COME ON MAN,” said another.
The appeals didn’t work, and Biden signed the bill into law Wednesday morning. Both times when Biden has commented on the bill—in a statement on Tuesday night, and during a Wednesday morning signing speech—he’s declined to even mention that the foreign aid package included the TikTok ban and divestiture language.
It doesn’t seem like the administration or campaign has plans for Biden to address it either. After the Wednesday speech, I reached out to the White House to ask whether we could expect anything from the president in the near future. I was redirected to the National Security Council, which directed me to statements made by national security adviser Jake Sullivan during Wednesday’s White House press briefing. I also pinged the Biden campaign, and didn’t get a clear answer there either.
“I think it’s probably smart to not center it, but it means there’s no counterprogramming, which I think allows for some of the conspiracies to go unchecked,” the user behind the X account @organizermemes told me over DMs Wednesday afternoon. “But probably doing that would’ve Streisand-effected the issue.”
It’s no secret why the campaign might not want the words “TikTok” and “ban” to be filmed coming out of the president’s mouth. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok, and a lot of them are young voters. Congress has criticized TikTok for years over the possibility that it could share US user data with the Chinese government. But Congress, the intelligence community, and the Biden administration haven’t given voters actual proof that the app is a national security risk. Instead, they’re asking people to trust the same institutions that have fallen out of favor with them over the past few years. (Good luck with that!)
I mentioned this in our first newsletter, but Representative Jeff Jackson from North Carolina had to issue a full-out YouTube-style apology video after his TikTok followers figured out he voted in support of this bill. Jackson’s posted to TikTok only a handful of times since the incident.
Biden’s relationship with the app hasn’t really seemed to change much, however, and his campaign intends to keep using the platform to reach voters throughout the election.
“A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are—and that includes online,” a Biden campaign official told NBC News on Wednesday. “TikTok is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters.”
It’s too early to tell exactly which way the wind is blowing as far as public sentiment is concerned, but a lot of people aren’t thrilled.
“If [Biden] wants to earn the trust of young people back, which he has repeatedly betrayed, he needs to be open and transparent about the reasoning behind this ban,” Luke Mullen, an actor, filmmaker, and activist with a large TikTok following told me on Wednesday. “So far he’s said nothing, which feels like a belittlement of our intelligence. Young Americans aren’t stupid.”
Beyond a lack of transparency, some creators and activists have told me that they feel like the ban is a direct response to the activism happening on the platform.
“Regardless of the reason for the ban, the fact that TikTok specifically, as opposed to other social media sites that misuse user data, is being targeted sends a message to young people that their speech is being censored,” Victoria Hammett, deputy executive director and programming director for Gen Z for Change, told me over the phone. “Regardless of whether or not that is the reason for the ban, that is clearly the message that Congress is sending to young people.”
If TikTok were to disappear, many of these creators and activists could lose their platforms.
“I’ve personally witnessed the power and increased voice young people have through specifically TikTok, and getting rid of our one place for that would be troubling to say the least,” says Mullen.
For now? Biden’s just posting through it.
The Chatroom
I’m going to keep it short this week. How do you feel about this TikTok bill? Are you a creator or small business owner who is worried about reaching your fans or customers? Are you part of a campaign or political group rethinking your entire media strategy this year? Or maybe you’re a TikTok user who receives a lot of their news on the app—let me know!
With your permission, I’d like to include some of your thoughts and stories in the newsletter next week. Leave a comment on the site, or send me an email at mail@wired.com.
💬 Leave a comment below this article.
WIRED Reads
- Far-Right Sheriffs Want a Citizen Army to Stop ‘Illegal Immigrant’ Voters: Constitutional sheriffs are already encouraging far-right militias to monitor polling sites, according to David Gilbert. What could go wrong?
- The Next US President Will Have Troubling New Surveillance Powers: Dell Cameron has been the reporter to follow on FISA reauthorization. Biden signed it over the weekend, and Dell explains its implications for privacy.
- Can the First Amendment Save TikTok?: Vittoria and I spent Tuesday talking to experts about whether the new TikTok law violates the First Amendment.
Want more? Subscribe now for unlimited access to WIRED.
What Else We’re Reading
🔗 As Meta flees politics, campaigns rely on new tricks to reach voters: Campaigns across the political spectrum have seen engagement on Meta-owned platforms tank over the past year. (The Washington Post)
🔗 Oracle met with Senate aides about TikTok data storage after House ban passed: The clock is ticking for TikTok, and Oracle is already freaked out that a ban on the app could impact its business. (CNBC)
🔗 ‘Thunder Run’: Behind Lawmakers’ Secretive Push to Pass the TikTok Bill: It may have seemed like the TikTok bill came out of nowhere, but a small group of lawmakers have been quietly crafting it for almost a year. (The New York Times)
The Download
It’s going to be all TikTok all the time for the next few weeks, I fear. If you’re looking for a great primer on all of the trickle-down effects this law will have, you should check out our latest Politics Lab podcast episode. I discuss it all with my editor and host of the show Leah Feiger and my colleague Vittoria Elliott!
You can listen to the show wherever you download podcasts. Go subscribe! If the next few weeks are as chaotic as this one, you just might miss it.
That’s it for today—thanks again for subscribing. You can get in touch with me via email, Instagram, X and Signal at makenakelly.32.
