Harris campaign embraces TikTok as efforts to restrict app sputter along
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 30. Photo: Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty Images
Vice President Kamala Harris' TikTok account and her campaign's embrace of online meme culture have garnered much enthusiasm and attention from young voters since the launch of her presidential bid.
The big picture: While her campaign has embraced the platform, the U.S. government is pursuing a lawsuit alleging that TikTok's ties to China represent a national security threat.
- This week, the U.S. House banned staffers from using ByteDance apps on official congressional devices. The Chinese company is the parent company of TikTok.
- It wasn't immediately clear how Harris' campaign would approach the social media platform's future. But her stance isn't dramatically different from President Biden's.
What they're saying: "As the VP has said before, we don't want to ban TikTok," a Harris campaign spokesperson told Axios in an emailed statement Wednesday.
- "We would just like to see a change in ownership," they added.
- Biden signed a bill in April to force TikTok's Chinese parent company to divest from its U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban.
Between the lines: That's on par with the Biden administration's stance.
- Biden's campaign, which joined TikTok in February, elected to stay on the platform even after he signed a bill that could lead to a potential app ban.
- Former President Trump initially spearheaded the push to ban TikTok, though he later appeared to reverse course on the issue.
Zoom in: Harris' campaign appears to have found much more success on the platform, garnering millions of views per video since she entered the presidential race.
- The Kamala HQ account, which was rebranded from Biden HQ after he exited the race, gathered over 40 percent of the likes ever received in just three days, per Politico.
- Content being posted about her from other accounts has also exploded.
Zoom out: The social media app's critics have long argued that it could put U.S. customer data at risk since Chinese law requires China's companies to share information with the government.
- But even if ByteDance chooses not to divest, the ban can't occur for at least nine months to a year from the bill's signing
- TikTok, which vowed not to go down without a fight, has maintained that it operates independently and protects U.S. data through an alliance with Oracle, which firewalls the data from overseas access.
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