The ban may rob his reelection campaign of a platform that he and fellow Democrats rely on to reach younger voters.
Roughly 60 per cent of TikTok's regular US news consumers are Democrats or Democrat-leaning, according to a 2023 study.
But the 2024 campaign is shaping up to be close, and Democratic-leaning US political discourse online has shifted to TikTok in recent years, political strategists say. They note that X, formerly Twitter, has cut back on harassment curbs under owner Elon Musk while Facebook moved away from political content while the short-form video site is the platform of choice for a new generation of politically engaged Americans.
"We voted Joe Biden in through social media, through the power of TikTok," said self-described Chicana trans woman NaomiHearts, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok, noting that youth voter participation hit a record in 2020."Why just TikTok?" TikTok denies sharing any user data with China and says the ban would deprive Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.Mr Biden's reelection campaign joined TikTok in February, using the NFL's Super Bowl to kick off its new account to reach young voters ahead of the presidential election in November.