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‘He STARTED the ban lmao’: Trump’s cry to restore TikTok isn’t fooling anyone

We all knew this would happen. It has been painfully obvious from the start.

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On the morning of the eve of his inauguration, Donald Trump posted this to Truth Social: “SAVE TIKTOK!” A screenshot of the statement began circulating on X (formerly Twitter), with users commenting things such as “mind you, he STARTED the ban lmao.”

Back in 2020, when Trump was still in office for his first term, he signed an executive order that would impose broad sanctions on the app, citing its data-sharing as a risk. Interestingly enough, this was around the time that Trump was actively attacking Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan for donating to mail-in ballots during 2020, when it was the height of the voter fraud accusations from Trump’s supporters. Trump loves

This time around, Zuckerberg is working alongside Trump, with many of the anti-TikTok voters possessing stocks in Meta. It seems like it is no coincidence that things should play out this way. After all, Trump’s return to office isn’t exactly a widely-celebrated occurrence, so easing the way with a supposed hail Mary and saving TikTok in its final hour? Of course there will be people who eat that up.

The ridiculousness of the TikTok ban aside–Facebook is much worse–Trump’s sudden switch-up is no surprise. An X user compiled a photo of headlines when Trump first said he would ban TikTok.

At least he’s still good at one thing: Grifting. Trump will sway wherever he needs to for popularity and support. It is how he won in 2016 and how he ultimately lost in 2020. I would not even be surprised if, months from now, he tries to take back his initial TikTok standpoint since ByteDance, the Chinese company who owns TikTok, stated in their app message that they were working with Trump to restore service. If they can help his bottom line, then Trump has no qualms with them whatsoever.

For example, his statement about Facebook on CNBC’s Squawk Box early in 2024: “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok, but the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.”

We will also address the obvious: Yes, it was President Biden who signed the TikTok ban into law. Trump did not. However, that does not take away the fact that Trump was vehemently anti-TikTok when it suited him, same as he was with Facebook. Only once the tides started turning as the extensions kept getting tacked on to TikTok’s final countdown did he weigh in again.

Now, TikTok is back with a “thanks to Trump” message on the app.Don’t fall for it. Don’t let people blindly praise Trump for undoing what was already a dumb, completely anti-American decision. Just wait until the next tech company either lines his pockets or pisses him off and see where his allegiances fall then.


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