Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok. His campaign plans to stay on the app anyway
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden showed off his putting during a campaign stop at a public golf course in Michigan last month, the moment was captured on TikTok.
Forced inside by a rainstorm, he competed with 13-year-old Hurley “HJ” Coleman IV to make putts on a practice mat. The Coleman family posted video of the proceedings on the app — complete with Biden holing out a putt and the teen knocking his own shot home in response, over the caption, “I had to sink the rebuttal.”
The network television cameras that normally follow the president were stuck outside.
Biden signed legislation Wednesday that could ban TikTok in the U.S. while his campaign has embraced the platform and tried to work with influencers. Already struggling to maintain his previous support from younger voters, the president is now facing criticism from some avid users of the app, which researchers have found is a primary news source for a third of Americans under the age of 30.
“There’s a core hypocrisy to the Biden administration supporting the TikTok ban while at the same time using TikTok for his campaign purposes,” said Kahlil Greene, who has more than 650,000 followers and is known on TikTok as the “Gen Z Historian.”
“I think it illustrates that he and his people know the power and necessity of TikTok.”
The Biden campaign defends its approach and rejects the idea that White House policy is contradicting its political efforts.
“We would be silly to write off any place where people are getting information about the president,” said Rob Flaherty, who ran the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy and now is deputy manager of Biden’s reelection campaign.
Flaherty said Biden's team forged relationships with TikTok influencers the 2020 election and that the platform has only gotten more...