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TikTok takes center stage in 2024 elections as candidates try to ban app while some are using it

President Joe Biden's election campaign is active on TikTok at the same time lawmakers are urging ByteDance to divest the app or to ban it.

Members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party introduced a bill this week that would require ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a U.S. ban, following earlier federal and state-led efforts that never came to fruition. Biden's age has shown up as a persistent concern in polling data, so experts say reaching out to younger audiences is key in trying to win over undecided young voters, and mobilize a traditional Democratic constituency whose members sometimes stay home on Election Day. Anupam Chander, a Georgetown University Law Center professor, released a study with some colleagues last year showing that fewer than 10% of members of the U.S. Congress have a "TikTok account from which they post content," most likely because of the app's connection to China.

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