How Trump leveraged Biden's TikTok ban law to help allies gain control of the app, amid fears it could be used to boost pro-Trump content and suppress criticism
The Biden administration argued a forced sale of the app would protect it from political influence. Bluesky: @karissabe , @cravenlovelace , @cjsprigman , @emmalbriant , @zakwilliamswzw , and @drewharwell.com Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to and @eff@mastodon.social Bluesky: Karissa Bell / @karissabe : I got so much hate for being skeptical of a ban and pointing out that there has never been any tangible evidence that the Chinese government is manipulating the TikTok algorithm. Wonder if they all feel so much safer from the scary TikTok algo now — www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ 2... Craven Lovelace / @cravenlovelace : TikTok will now be the Trump propaganda channel. — www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ 2... Chris Sprigman / @cjsprigman : I just want to emphasize again how the enthusiastic participation of Joe Biden and congressional Democrats in the stupid moral panic about TikTok has enabled encroaching fascism. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ 2... @emmalbriant : Great reporting here from @drewharwell.com on Trump's opportunistic capture of TikTok with his friendly media moguls. I am interviewed on what this means for media freedom and argue Trump is “creating a media monopoly to keep himself in power.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ 2... Zak Williams / @zakwilliamswzw : The fact that congress is going to allow this to happen is just shameful www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ 2... Trump turns Biden's TikTok law into a big win Drew Harwell / @drewharwell.com : The TikTok law was one of the biggest own goals of Biden's presidency. Helped deliver a(nother) critical media platform into the hands of pro-Trump billionaires seeking their own political influence wapo.st/3IlYmrP Mastodon: Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life@mas.to : Biden and the Democrats were worried that TikTok had too much political influence over the youth and so they gave Trump a golden opportunity to ensure that its political influence was right wing flavored. — Incredible own goal. — https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... [image] @eff@mastodon.social : The so-called TikTok ban “has only resulted in turning over the platform to the allies of a president who seems to have no respect for the First Amendment,” EFF's @davidgreene told the @washingtonpost. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The policy case for a forced TikTok sale was framed as insulation from political influence, but the reported ownership outcome redirects scrutiny toward domestic political influence instead. That tension was already visible when lawmakers who backed the law sought to delay its enforcement as the political context changed.
The story also follows earlier reporting that TikTok had relaxed moderation enforcement to appeal to Trump supporters before the election, making fears about editorial favoritism under a new control arrangement especially consequential.
First-order effects
- TikTok’s new control arrangement puts its owners and managers under immediate pressure to demonstrate that content ranking and moderation are not being used to favor pro-Trump material or suppress criticism.
- The Biden-era law’s stated safeguard against political influence is now judged against whether the resulting ownership structure creates a different political-influence risk.
Second-order effects
- Political rivals, civil-liberties advocates, and creators are likely to focus more closely on moderation decisions and distribution patterns, raising the reputational and governance cost of opaque platform controls.
- The episode weakens a simple national-security rationale for forced-sale policies: future interventions will face sharper questions about who gains platform leverage after a divestiture.
Third-order effects
- If ownership transfers become a route to partisan influence rather than a credible governance safeguard, platform-control policy may increasingly be evaluated through both national-security and First Amendment lenses.
- The broader structural risk is that control of major distribution platforms becomes an explicitly contested political asset, increasing pressure for durable transparency and independence safeguards rather than ownership changes alone.
The trend: TikTok’s US saga is part of a wider shift in which platform ownership, moderation, and recommendation systems are treated as instruments of political power as well as technology governance.