‘Crank Dat’ rapper and online personality Soulja Boy has recently announced that he is prepared to buy the social media platform TikTok as it faces a ban in the US. A move that would see more than 100 million American users denied access to the Chinese-owned app.
US Congress have passed the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act, which contains a condition that the Chinese-owned parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, must sell the app to an American-run business if they want the app to remain available in the US.
As one of TikTok’s biggest markets after China, there has been no evidence that ByteDance are prepared to transfer part ownership of TikTok to Silicon Valley. However, Soulja boy has announced that he is prepared to buy the app despite the knowledge that he could never afford it.
After the news broke that TikTok may be removed from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store nationwide, Soulja Boy (real name DeAndre Way) took to Twitter/X to vent about the legislation, writing, “I can’t believe y’all just gon let them ban TikTok like that. And y’all think it’s funny. If they do it to this app, they can do it to any app or site. Not cool [for real], y’all will see later.”
A user wrote in response to the Atlanta native’s initial tweet, “You maybe don’t see it now but TikTok is more important than any other platform right now that’s why they’re trying to ban it trust me.”
Way continued his rant, writing about how he doesn’t believe its right that US congress is pressuring ByteDance to sell stakes in the company, insisting it would mess up users experience, commenting, “That’s still not right [to] sell it. For what – so they can change and mess up the algorithm? [Shake my head], leave the app alone,” Soulja tweeted.
He concluded his run of tweets by directly tweeting TikTok, asking them “How much y’all want for [it]? I’ll buy it.” Although both he and fans know he is not a part of the conversation in a business capacity.