With the next TikTok sale deadline approaching, the Chinese spyware app is promoting pro-assassination content in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk‘s murder. President Donald Trump has both a moral and a constitutional duty to shut the app down.
TikTok’s newest sale-by date is Wednesday, which is the result of Trump extending the deadline three previous times despite having no authority to do so. The law, passed by Congress, signed by then-President Joe Biden, and affirmed by the Supreme Court, requires TikTok to be sold off from its Chinese parent company or be banned in the United States. The law granted the authority for one deadline extension if ByteDance was negotiating to sell the app, which it appears never to have been.
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Now, after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, pro-murder content is going viral on TikTok. This is the norm for the Chinese-controlled algorithm, which has promoted to young Americans trends of people stealing cars, destroying school property, assaulting people, and committing other crimes. Aside from promoting lawlessness, TikTok has been a haven for hateful left-wing content, culminating in the unsurprising left-wing celebrations of Kirk’s murder.
How many more clues does Trump and his administration need that TikTok needs to be banished from the American social media landscape for good? He has already spent his entire presidency openly defying the law and the constitutional balance of power by allowing the app to remain online in the U.S. He is legally obligated to enforce the law as it stands, and has refused to do so. It remains the biggest, most blatant abuse of power by Trump in either of his two presidential terms.
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Now that the app is reminding us once again that it is a toxic left-wing hellscape fueled by a Chinese algorithm that pushes criminality and divisive content to young Americans, what is the logic for allowing it to remain online? TikTok is a Chinese spyware app that funnels data to the Chinese Communist Party (more data than lifted by any other social media app) and serves as social engineering for young, impressionable people. It has been banned by law.
Trump is both morally obligated and constitutionally mandated to shut down TikTok. There should be no more extensions, no more special favors for the app’s CEO, and no more hemming and hawing. The best time to shut the app down was eight months ago, as required by law. The second-best time is now.