WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden's re-election campaign said Monday that the popular social media app is targeting younger voters even as the administration continued to raise security concerns about the possibility of sharing. He defended his new TikTok account as an important way to increase its appeal. Sharing user data with the Chinese Communist government.
The campaign's first post featured the president taking a quiz at Sunday's Super Bowl and included references to the latest political conspiracy theory centered around pop superstar Taylor Swift.
“The president's TikTok debut last night, with more than 5 million views and counting, is a new way to reach voters in an evolving, fragmented, and increasingly personalized media environment. This is a positive validation of both our commitment and success in finding innovative ways to do things,” Rob Flaherty, Biden's deputy re-election campaign manager, said in a statement.
However, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “There are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices, and our policy of not allowing it remains unchanged.'' ” he said.
Kirby deferred most questions about TikTok to the Biden campaign, avoiding more general questions about whether it was wise to use the app in the first place. He said the potential security issues “have to do with concerns about data storage and the potential misuse of that data and privacy information by foreign parties.”
The FBI and Federal Communications Commission have both warned that TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance may share user data, including browsing history, location information and biometric identifiers, with the country's authoritarian government. In 2022, Biden will ban approximately 4 million federal employees from using TikTok on agency-owned devices, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security, and national security research purposes. signed a bill to do so.
Separately, the secretive and powerful Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing the app for years, unsuccessfully trying to force an ownership stake in TikTok from its parent company. ing. The White House said Monday that a review is underway.
TikTok, which has 150 million users in the United States, is best known for its short snippets of viral dance routines. However, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) told I'm proud to be there,” he posted.
The Biden campaign said it had been considering opening a TikTok account for months, but ultimately did so at the urging of youth activists and groups who say the app is key to reaching young voters.
The campaign said it uses a separate phone for TikTok to isolate its use of the app from other workstreams and communications such as email. The campaign said it was taking additional measures, but declined to name specifics, citing safety concerns.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had no contact with the campaign and received no advance warning that her TikTok account would be made public.
