TikTok users have begun posting videos to the Chinese-owned social media platform that show them prank calling the voter fraud hotline set up by President Donald Trump in an attempt to clog the lines.
NBC News reports that users on the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok have begun prank calling a hotline for voter fraud started by President Trump’s reelection campaign making false claims and reports in an attempt to clog up the lines. President Trump’s reelection campaign set up the hotline for people to report any suspicious activity near their voting stations.
The President’s son, Eric Trump, tweeted about the hotline on Twitter, stating: “Help stop voter suppression, irregularities and fraud.”
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) November 7, 2020
Almost immediately TikTok users began calling the hotline to report misinformation. Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney Channel series Gravity Falls, also posted videos of himself calling the hotline as various characters from his show.:
I’m don’t want to tell anyone what to do, but if you felt like calling this number and, say, reporting the Hamburglar, I can confirm from personal experience that it would be very funny https://t.co/GIRoHn6jAa
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) November 7, 2020
Hahaha can hear how exhausted they are already pic.twitter.com/zoa4HiLaEj
— Alex Hirsch (@_AlexHirsch) November 7, 2020
In one video, Hirsch tells operators: “I went in there and I had a big ol’ sack and I just started taking ballots out of the box, and, you know, I didn’t even try to hide it.”
In one TikTok video posted by the user cheesecaseacita, the young woman calls the line telling operators that her name is “Mary.” When a member of the Trump National War Room who identifies himself as Ricardo answers the call and asks what sort of voter fraud she saw, the TikToker replies: “I saw people were literally spreading poop all over their ballots.”
Another user named caitlynjk95 posted a video in which she appears to call the line, identifying herself as a voter in Georgia before telling the operator: “I was in line to vote and, like, there was this guy there, and I don’t know that this is considered fraud or anything, but he was there and he challenged me to a fiddle competition,” a reference to the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band. The operator replies that the situation is “very interesting.”
Lara Trump has since tweeted a new number for the hotline, challenging prank callers “Keep spamming. We will keep changing the number.”
Another new number 👇🏽 To those who have spammed our other numbers: it’s shameful that you don’t think it’s important to have integrity in our elections. It’s fundamental to our republic. Keep spamming. We will keep changing the number. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ILPJrqG42D
— Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) November 7, 2020
Breitbart News reported earlier this month that a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok cannot yet be shut down by an executive order from the Trump administration. The judge granted a preliminary injunction against a number of bans by the U.S. Commerce Department that were scheduled to go into effect on November 12.
If the ban went into effect, the app would seemingly become unusable by restricting web hosting, content delivery, and more. TikTok is suing the Trump administration and Commerce Department in an attempt to block the ban but the latest ruling came from another lawsuit.
Read more at Breitbart News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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