Last week, the Biden administration posted a flashy video of President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama to social media that was made through CapCut, an app owned by ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok.
The Chinese-based company’s data collection on TikTok’s users and its ties to the Chinese Communist Party has made it the target of a ban on U.S. government devices. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are further considering a general ban of the app on American devices.
That the Biden team would use a ByteDance app for its own social media content, after overseeing a U.S. government ban on TikTok for government devices due to the same security concerns, may strike some as ironic and even hypocritical.
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Even more ironic, the same day the video was posted, TikTok’s CEO was in Washington, D.C. being grilled by Congress over his app’s potential threat to U.S. national security.
The video posted by the Biden team featured an image of the two U.S. presidents standing sided by side, while fancy edits from CapCut were used to add firework and confetti effects to the image.
Biden’s communications team also used CapCut effects to make the photo cartwheel in an attention-grabbing way as peppy electronic music played in the background. Text featured over the image gave a shoutout to the Affordable Care Act, that was signed into law during the Obama/Biden administration.
The text stated, “Just letting everyone know the Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land.”
NBCNews.com reviewed the video and claimed it is “frame for frame the exact same as a popular CapCut template, although the company’s watermark isn’t visible and the White House’s version appears slightly zoomed in. It is possible to download the template without the watermark.”
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The report added, “The music — an audio file called ‘Happy With You’ that originated from the TikTok Official Sound Studio — is the same music that accompanies the template.”
Again, the Biden administration has signaled that it would move to ban TikTok from phones all over the United States due to its to ties to ByteDance, unless the app was sold to another company.
Biden has been called out before for using TikTok despite the security risks the president has acknowledged.
CBS “Face The Nation” anchor Margaret Brennan grilled White House strategic communications coordinator John Kirby this week because Biden made a TikTok with former “One Direction” music star Niall Horan at the White House on St. Patrick’s Day. She called it “hypocritical.”
Though Kirby shot back, “It’s not on government devices. We do have legitimate national security concerns.”
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He added, “I just would tell you, again, our concerns on the national security front are valid. We have banned it on all government devices. We have to get through this CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S] review to see what outcome is before we move ahead. In the meantime, again, the president welcomes congressional action on the RESTRICT act.”
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