It was only last week that Donald Trump sent shockwaves around the world after officially being elected for a second presidential term. But he’s already gotten his feet well and truly under the table, asserting his authority on issues like TikTok and the wider internet.
One highlight was on Nov. 12, when Trump announced the seemingly made-up “Department of Government Efficiency.” Leading this department is the edge lord and owner of the social media platform X, Elon Musk.
Musk will be joined by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The pair are set to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
So, to put it bluntly, one of the biggest social media stakeholders in the world, someone who is known for making controversial choices, is going to be part of what looks like a deregulation department. Gulp.
Is Trump un-banning TikTok?
It doesn’t stop there. Speaking to the Washington Post, several of Trump’s closest allies said that they expect him to try to halt the ban on TikTok. It would make sense if he weren’t the one who vouched for a ban in the first place.
Back in 2020, Trump was vocal about his desire to ban TikTok. On July 31 that year, he announced a “sell-or-ban” type sanction for TikTok’s parent company. He never enacted the idea. However, he later signed an executive order to ban TikTok unless it was sold by ByteDance.
Joe Biden then went on to reverse this order when he was inaugurated before signing the current “sell-or-ban” law that is currently working its way through the courts right now. However, in a confusing turn of events, Trump is now opposing that legislation.
Under Trump’s second administration, it’s already become clear that the already chaotic internet and wider creator economy is going to look a lot different from how it does right now, and this is only the beginning.
