Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy weighs in on TikTok debate

Barstool Sports founder and president Dave Portnoy said it’s hard to underestimate the importance of TikTok for small businesses and content creators as lawmakers mull the next steps for the social media platform.

“I’m very concerned about how many people earn a living. It’s huge. You can’t underestimate that. And just to cut it out – and you got people who are investing in Meta writing the bills, it’s all pretty confusing,” he said Tuesday on “The Will Cain Show.”

TikTok went dark in the United States late Saturday night after the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance failed to sell the platform to a U.S. buyer.

President Donald Trump, who supported banning TikTok in 2020, signed an executive order on his first day in office Monday, giving it a 75-day extension to continue operating in the United States.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party John Moolenaar, R-Mich., penned an op-ed explaining the next steps for TikTok.

SENATOR CALLS TIKTOK ‘A WEAPON,’ SAYS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ‘NEED TO KNOW THE CHILLING TRUTH’ ABOUT IT

“TikTok’s attempts to blame the government are deceiving. The law is not a ban, and Congress gave TikTok a straightforward path to continue operating: Sever ties with the Chinese government, and the restrictions will be immediately lifted,” Moolenaar wrote. “When the law was enacted last April, Congress gave ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, 270 days to sell off its stake and relinquish control of the platform.”

“But even as American buyers have lined up to make an offer, ByteDance has refused to discuss the possibility of a sale. In a move that is raising eyebrows, the company appears willing to watch its reportedly $50 billion U.S. operation go up in flames rather than comply with the law’s simple requirement to divest,” he continued.

A TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken on Jan. 6, 2020.  (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)

In a video posted to YouTube, Portnoy said the TikTok debate reminds him of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the government told businesses not to open their doors because it has to “protect you.”

“There are so many creators, small businesses who have worked for years, for years to build their livelihoods, their careers on TikTok. You finally become successful and the government is like, boop! Sorry, cut your legs out. You’re done,” he said in the video. 

Portnoy told Fox News host Will Cain he doesn’t trust any social media network and admitted he didn’t know much about how the CCP uses the app to collect user information.

FILE – This Feb. 25, 2020, file photo, shows the icon for TikTok in New York.   President Donald Trump will order China’s ByteDance to sell its hit video app TikTok because of national-security concerns, according to reports published Friday, July 31, 2020. “We are looking at TikTok,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House. “We may be banning TikTok.” (AP Photo/File) (AP Photo/File)

“I don’t have the Secret Service telling me everything they’re worried about. I get the disinformation to a degree. The spying? I don’t know. I’m just a common dude sitting here looking on TikTok and asking, what are they talking about?” he explained.

Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend that he would like to see the United States have a “joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

He added that without U.S. approval “there is no TikTok.” “With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”