WASHINGTON, March 14 (Reuters) - If President Joe Biden

keeps his promise to sign a ban on TikTok over its ties to the

Chinese government, the 81-year-old may rob his reelection

campaign of a platform that he and fellow Democrats rely on to

reach younger voters.

Biden's campaign got thousands of "likes" on Tuesday for a

TikTok video skewering Republican rival Donald Trump about

cutting Social Security spending. But the comments were focused

on another issue altogether: the proposed ban.

"Good thing we saw this on TikTok," said one. "How are you

going to use this to campaign if you ban it?" asked another.

House Republicans voted Wednesday to force TikTok's Chinese

owner ByteDance to divest its 170 million user U.S. business, or

face a ban. If the Senate passes the bill, as the White House

urges, Biden has pledged to sign it.

But the 2024 campaign is shaping up to be close, and

Democratic-leaning U.S. political discourse online has shifted

to TikTok in recent years, political strategists say. They note

that X, formerly Twitter, has cut back on harassment curbs under

owner Elon Musk while Facebook moved away from political content

while the short-form video site is the platform of choice for a

new generation of politically engaged Americans.

TikTok's users belong disproportionately to groups that vote

reliably for Democrats, which Biden needs to woo. Trump's

campaign does not have an official TikTok account.

Roughly 60% of TikTok's regular U.S. news consumers are

Democrats or Democrat-leaning, according to a 2023 study from

the Pew Research Center. Nineteen percent of TikTok's news

consumers are Black, and 30% are Hispanic, versus about 14% and

19% of the general U.S. population, respectively. About 44% of

news consumers on TikTok are between ages 18 and 29.

Banning TikTok risks "displacing a large part of the

electorate from the ability to communicate...meaningfully about

politics at a time when a highly contentious election is about

to occur," said Samuel Woolley, journalism professor and

director of the University of Texas at Austin's propaganda

research lab.

"We voted Joe Biden in through social media, through the

power of TikTok," said NaomiHearts, a self-described Chicana

trans woman with 1.1 million followers on TikTok, noting that

youth voter participation hit a record in 2020. "Why just

TikTok?"

A ban would take away young voters "favorite social media

app where they get their news, where they follow their favorite

people where they get entertainment, where they're allowed to

basically escape," said Dr. Anthony Youn, a plastic surgeon with

8.4 million TikTok followers.

The measure is the latest in a series of moves in Washington

to respond to national security concerns about China, from

connected vehicles to artificial intelligence to cranes at U.S.

ports.

"This is a critical national security issue," No. 2 House

Republican Steve Scalise said on social media platform X.

TikTok denies sharing any user data with China and says

the ban would deprive Americans of their Constitutional right to

free expression.

SEPARATE TIKTOK PHONES

Biden's reelection campaign joined TikTok in February, using

the NFL's Super Bowl to kick off its new account to reach young

voters ahead of the presidential election in November.

The campaign's account, @BidenHQ had 237,500 followers as of

March 13, while @thedemocrats had over half a million.

The White House briefed over 70 influencers and content

creators on TikTok and other social media platforms with a

combined audience of over 100 million followers, on topics like

student debt and economic issues ahead of the president's State

of the Union address to amplify his message.

"We are not concerned about the impact" of a ban on Biden's

reelection chances, said a top White House official. "There are

lots of twists and turns before anything ends up happening

here," because Trump is opposed to the bill, and Senate Majority

Leader Chuck Schumer has not committed to bringing it on the

floor.

A second White House official said: "National security

concerns outweigh how anyone is feeling."

"The president is not thinking of national security based on

reviews from users on whether they are happy or not on TikTok or

any other platform," the official said.

Federal employees are banned from having TikTok on their

phones, so Biden administration staff are not allowed to have

the app on their work phones.

Biden's campaign staff workers are not employed by the

government and do not deal with national security issues, so

they are allowed to have TikTok on their phones, said one source

briefed on the issue.

But most campaign staffers in frequent contact with the

White House have two phones. Just one engages with TikTok in

order to isolate using the app from other workstreams and

communications, including emails, the source said.

The White House has previously cited concerns about TikTok's

preservation of data and potential misuse of that data and

privacy information by foreign actors.

"We're taking the security precautions necessary to make

sure no data is getting into the wrong hands," the source said.

The campaign is trying to reach people "where they are," the

source added. "We'll see what happens in the Senate, and we're

far away from any decision on this. It's wait-and-see mode for

everybody."