Biden Campaign Joins TikTok After Banning Other Federal Employees

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign revealed its new TikTok account on Sunday despite concerns about the app’s security and whether or not data collected while using the TikTok app can be shared with the Chinese government.

The account’s name is @bidenhq, and will be run by campaign staff in conjunction with other social media accounts including Facebook, Truth Social and more. According to Time Magazine, by Monday morning the account already had 51,000 followers with Biden’s first video getting more than 500,000 followers.

“The campaign will continue meeting voters where they are, innovating to create content that will resonate with critical audiences and the core constituencies that make up the president’s diverse and broad coalition of voters,” advisers said, explaining the move.

The move to join TikTok goes against much of what the White House has said and done since Biden took office. According to NBC, in late 2022, Biden signed legislation that included a limited ban prohibiting federal employees from joining the app on government devices.

According to the Associated Press, the FBI, CIA and Federal Communications Commission all warned that ByteDance could be forced to give user data like browsing history, IP addresses and biometric identifiers to the Chinese government.

Biden’s campaign, in an attempt to woo younger voters, has looked past the warnings and joined the TikTok app anyway.

Many Republicans have asked Congress to consider banning the app across America because of its ties to China and lack of security and privacy, especially after the country began enforcing a law in 2017 requiring Chinese companies to provide the government with any information “pertinent to its national security.”

“Biden campaign bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices,” Sen. John Hawley (R-MO) tweeted in response to Biden’s first TikTok post.

“The evidence that China is using TikTok to spy on and influence American citizens is clear, and it only keeps mounting as time goes on,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) previously wrote on Fox News.