TikTok Responds To Donald Trump’s Ban Threat: ‘We’re Not Planning On Going Anywhere’
President Donald Trump has said he plans to ban the social media app TikTok via executive order, but the company says they aren’t going anywhere. On Saturday morning, a video featuring U.S. general manager Vanessa Pappas was shared online and she did her best to assure users they weren’t worried about what’s ahead.
The post was shared on both the main TikTok account as well as their Twitter page. It was released a matter of hours after the president made headlines for declaring he had decided to ban the application.
Trump’s announcement was made to reporters as they were all on Air Force One headed to Florida. While he did not provide specifics beyond stating he would do this via executive order, he did note that he might put this in place as early as Saturday.
In response, Pappas said the TikTok staff was working on building the safest possible app. She promised they were going to be around for a long time and she touted some specifics in defense of their place in the U.S. market.
She noted that TikTok currently has 1,500 employees in the U.S. In addition, she said they are planning to add 10,000 additional jobs across the country in the next three years.
@tiktok A message to the TikTok community.
Pappas also noted that they recently announced a $1 billion fund to support their creators. The TikTok executive promised they are working to ensure this was the safest utility possible, knowing it was the right thing to do.
Both social media posts garnered a great deal of attention. The TikTok post received nearly 2 million likes over the course of a couple of hours, along with about 162,000 comments.
On Twitter, the same video was shared almost 5,000 times and liked almost 22,000 times in the same time span. It had also been viewed more than 480,000 times.
“As a republican. I’ve supported trump through and through but funny enough this was the thing that tipped me over,” one person tweeted.
“I wish tiktok would have said something within the first 3 hours cause I had like 5 panic attacks,” one user replied to the clip on TikTok.
“Please stay. y’all are the only reason 2020 still has hope. let’s stand for tiktok,” detailed another note.
For now, TikTok is still active. It’s not clear what comes next, or how banning the app from the U.S. would be implemented. Users are watching this situation closely and are curious to see how this plays out.
