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TikTok users attempted to manipulate the ratings for Donald Trump‘s town hall on Thursday night. The town hall ran at the same time as former Vice President Joe Biden’s on different networks.
The suggestion came YouTuber Hank Green, who took to TikTok to suggest users stream and watch Biden’s town hall on multiple screens in an attempt to boost the ratings.
Here’s how it all went down.
From Newsweek:
Green suggested that viewers watch Biden’s town hall event on multiple devices simultaneously to boost Biden’s ratings over Trump’s. Hundreds of TikTok users dueted Green’s sound with videos of them watching Biden on their TVs, laptops, and phones.
Another tactic that TikTok users implemented to try to boost Biden’s ratings involved opening up YouTube using multiple Google accounts in multiple tabs.
However, Trump ultimately won on the ratings battle.
@hankgreen1
The news comes at a time when the TikTok community continues to be at war with Trump over his proposed ban; they had previously bought hundreds of tickets to his rallies in order to empty the venues.
TikTok is based in Beijing and has been deemed a national security risk. It has been downloaded over 110 million times in the United States.
The company, however, claims that its servers are based out of China and that they are committed to transparency for its users. The app is also not available within China.
“At TikTok, we take these issues incredibly seriously as well. We are committed to transparency and accountability in how we support our TikTok users in the US and around the world,” the statement from TikTok read. “TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period.”
TikTok was first launched in 2017 and is available for download on iOS and Android devices. Earlier this year, TikTok hit one billion downloads globally with the app available in over 150 markets and 75 languages.
