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Biden campaign bans staffers from using TikTok
Biden campaign general counsel Dana Remus, wrote to staffers to “refrain from downloading and using TikTok on work and personal devices”.
Staffers of the presidential campaign of Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, have been instructed reportedly to delete TikTok, the Chinese app in the crosshairs of governments around the world after it was banned by India, from their personal and work phones.
Citing security and privacy concerns, Biden campaign general counsel Dana Remus, wrote to staffers to “refrain from downloading and using TikTok on work and personal devices”, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
The Biden campaign stricture came as US congress was on the verge passing a bill forbidding federal employees from using TikTok on their phones. The Trump administration is also weighing an outright ban on the app and other Chinese applications.
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“It’s something we’re looking at,” President Donald Trump has said of his administration’s plans for TikTok.
In the days after India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps amidst tensions with China over Galwan clashes late June, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not only welcomed it but indicated the US may have played an “assist” role in it, and signalled Trump administration’s intentions to follow suit.
The Biden campaign’s ban on TikTok for its staffers was being seen by India watchers as an important signal of shared concern about China, in view of the absence thus far of explicit expression of support from the Biden campaign for India in the ongoing India-China dispute, in sharp contrast to the outpouring of backing from the Trump administration
Democrats individually and as a body had expressed their support for India in this conflict, and most notably by passing a bill last week, as a part of the defence spending bill for 2021, expressing concern with China’s underlying motivation to “redraw long-standing settled boundaries”.
But the Biden campaign hadn’t “uttered a word” yet on the India-China border conflict, an Indian American Democratic operative said requesting anonymity. The TikTok ban, the person added, coming ahead of Trump administration and congress’s actions showed an “uncoordinated similarity” of purpose.
Democrats are looking at Indian American voters as a key component of their strategy to flip the three swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — that gave Trump the White House in an upset victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“The Indian American vote — the AAPI more broadly — can be an absolute difference maker,” Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said at a power-packed pitch to them at a virtual town-hall recently, of the swing states.
“We know that there are important sectors of the Indian American community throughout our country, throughout our battleground states,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, had added in her pitch to the community. “And we want to make sure we were engaging and connecting directly with them, their key leaders in these battleground states. And the key radio stations, newspapers, whatever else outlet it is that are speaking to them.”
There are an estimated 4 million people of Indian origin in the United States, but only about a third are eligible to vote — 1.3 million, according to a report by an organization of Democrats focussed on mobilization of Asian American voters to ensure the victory of Asian American candidates running for city-level public offices to those at the centre.
