TikTok, the short video sharing platform, is the latest to be targeted by the US President Donald Trump, who is seeking re-election in the presidential elections slated in November this year. 

“WARNING: China is spying on you,” reads four advertisements on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram pages. “Sign the petition now to BAN TikTok”, the advertisement reads, which can be viewed in the Facebook Ads Archive. 

The ads accuse the platform of monitoring users’ clipboard. “TikTok has been caught red-handed”, the ad reads.

Although, Trump has attacked social media platforms, such as Twitter and Snapchat, in the past but TikTok has a different story.

Owned by the Chinese multinational tech giant, ByteDance, the platform has raised security concerns over users’ data. The same has been cited by several officials in the Trump administration, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Concerns have been raised over, if the company sends users’ data to China. Although, TikTok has claimed it stores American user data on servers in the US and Singapore and doesn’t send it to China. 

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance aren’t the first Chinese firms to come under the attack of the Trump administration. It ran a campaign against Huawei and ZTE, citing the same privacy and security concerns.

But, the latest attack comes at a time when relations between the two giants have deteriorated significantly. Trump and his administration has been accusing China of withholding coronavirus data and of being opaque on the virus issue.

Although, it seems, Trump might have a specific beef with TikTok. This is because several teen TikTokers and KPop fans tricked the Trump campaign during his Tulsa rally on June 20. They bought thousands of tickets to it, with no intention of attending it.

Hence, although the campaign anticipated millions of attendees, the US President witnessed empty seats.