Joe
Biden
faces
the
camera,
casually
dressed
for
a
US
president
in
khaki
slacks
and
a
quarter
zip.
He
jovially
answers
a
series
of
questions
about
the
Super
Bowl
happening
that
day:
Chiefs
or
Niners?
Jason
Kelce
or
Travis
Kelce?
And
finally:
Trump
or
Biden?
“Are
you
kidding?
Biden,”
the
president
says
with
a
smile.
That
video
marked
the
presidential
reelection
campaigns’
debut
on
TikTok,
the
massively
popular
video
app
that’s
captured
the
attention
of
170
million
Americans.
As
of
April,
the
video
has
more
than
10.5
million
views.
Still,
just
weeks
after
that
launch,
Biden
would
pledge
to
sign
a
bill
that
could
oust
the
app
from
the
US
unless
it
finds
a
way
to
separate
from
its
Chinese
parent
company
in
six
months
once
it
takes
effect.
As
of
Saturday,
that
bill
looks
one
step
closer
to
becoming
law,
after
it
cleared
the
House
a
second
time
as
part
of
a
foreign
aid
package,
making
it
more
difficult
for
the
Senate
to
ignore.
The
push
comes
from
US
policymakers’
fears
that
ByteDance,
which
owns
TikTok,
could
be
compelled
by
the
Chinese
government
to
hand
over
data
on
US
users.
TikTok
has
repeatedly
said
it
does
not
store
US
user
information
in
China.
While
TikTok
users
might
be
surprised
by
the
incongruity,
campaign
professionals
have
mostly
shrugged
off
the
cognitive
dissonance.
To
them,
what’s
most
important
is
being
where
their
voters
are.
Even
so,
TikTok’s
prohibition
on
political
ads
and
relative
newness
to
the
election
scene
means
it’s
not
yet
indispensable
for
campaigns
in
the
way
that
strongholds
like
Facebook
are,
after
proving
to
be
reliable
for
fundraising
over
several
cycles.
But
many
strategists
also
still
recognize
opportunity
—
if
limited
—
on
the
platform,
for
as
long
as
it
exists
in
its
current
form.
Bradley
Tusk,
a
venture
capitalist
and
political
strategist,
who
served
as
Mike
Bloomberg’s
campaign
manager
in
his
2009
mayoral
race,
compared
candidates’
attitudes
toward
the
TikTok
ban
to
how
they
might
treat
proposals
to
amend
campaign
finance
laws.
“When
you
see
proposals
to
change
them,
every
member
says,
‘Well,
I’ll
live
by
whatever
the
rules
are,
but
I’m
not
going
to
unilaterally
disarm
until
that
happens,’”
says
Tusk.
“So
I
think
every
campaign
that
is
using
TikTok
…
is
going
to
use
it
until
the
day
the
platform
goes
away
or
changes
hands
or
whatever
happens,
if
anything.
But
I
think
that
no
one
is
going
to
preemptively
not
use
TikTok.”
When
policy
conflicts
with
politics
Hypocrisy
in
politics
is
far
from
novel.
But
TikTok’s
passionate
user
base
has
been
particularly
vocal
about
candidates
who
voted
for
the
TikTok
bill
and
yet
embrace
the
platform.
Take
North
Carolina
Rep.
Jeff
Jackson
(D),
who
built
a
large
following
on
TikTok
discussing
his
thoughts
on
congressional
news
but
rapidly
lost
100,000
of
them
after
his
vote
for
the
bill
that
would
force
TikTok’s
divestment
or
else
ban
it.
“WITHOUT
TIKTOK
YOUR
NOTHING!!!,”
one
TikToker
commented
at
the
time.
His
posts
have
been
riddled
with
comments
like
a
series
of
tomato
emoji
and
“How
much
did
they
pay
you
to
vote
yes
on
the
ban?”
Some
comments
seem
to
suggest
that
Jackson’s
vote
was
swayed
by
money
from
the
American
Israel
Public
Affairs
Committee
(AIPAC),
as
some
lawmakers
have
pointed
with
concern
to
widespread
pro-Palestinian
messages
on
the
app
and
suggested
China
could
put
its
thumb
on
the
scales
of
what
messages
American
users
see.
After
Jackson
deleted
his
video
explaining
his
vote
rationale,
one
viewer
commented
on
another
video,
“deleting
it
doesn’t
make
what
u
did
go
away
�
how’s
that
aipac
money?”
(Jackson’s
campaign
received
just
$8,000
from
AIPAC
in
the
2022
cycle,
according
to
OpenSecrets,
and
he’s
running
for
North
Carolina
attorney
general,
rather
than
reelection
to
Congress,
this
go
around.)
Tusk
said
he’s
not
too
worried
— he
thinks
the
loudest
voices
on
TikTok
are
unlikely
to
be
voters
in
the
primaries
anyway.
Unless
a
candidate
is
truly
in
a
swing
district
where
the
fight
comes
down
to
the
general
election,
primary
voters
are
really
the
ones
congressional
candidates
are
trying
to
reach,
he
said.
“If
I
were
that
member
of
Congress,
and
I
was
getting
all
this
shit
from
people
on
TikTok,
my
assumption
would
be
it
doesn’t
matter
in
the
slightest.
It’s
going
to
have
no
impact
on
my
primary,”
Tusk
said.
“Even
though,
arguably,
as
a
statement
of
principle,
if
you
voted
to
effectively
ban
it,
you
should
not
be
using
it,
I
can’t
imagine
anybody’s
doing
that,”
he
added.
Rep.
Jackson’s
TikTok
profile
has
three
new
videos
since
he
voted
on
the
divest-or-ban
bill,
including
an
apology
video
for
deleting
the
video
that
was
posted
immediately
after
the
bill
passed
the
House.
“If
campaigns
see
a
benefit
to
it,
I
would
be
very
surprised
if
they
stopped
using
it
based
on
political
climate”
It’s
also
not
the
first
time
candidates
have
had
to
grapple
with
the
message
they
could
send
by
campaigning
on
a
platform
that
they’re
simultaneously
attacking
in
policy
spaces.
When
the
Cambridge
Analytica
data
scandal
came
to
light
in
2018,
revealing
that
data
from
millions
of
Facebook
profiles
had
been
harvested
without
users’
consent
by
a
political
analytics
firm,
campaigns
still
relied
heavily
on
the
platform
for
their
fundraising
and
messaging
efforts.
Although
Facebook
banned
political
advertising
after
the
2020
election,
it
lifted
the
ban
only
a
year
later,
in
time
for
the
following
election
cycle.
Some
political
advertisers
shifted
spend
from
the
platform
in
the
2022
midterm
elections,
but
many
pointed
to
other
reasons
for
the
change,
like
new
privacy
policies
on
the
iPhone
that
made
it
harder
to
target
users.
“I
don’t
think
there
was
a
dent
in
political
advertising
[on
Facebook]
after
Cambridge
Analytica,”
said
Jon
Jones,
founder
and
CEO
of
advocacy
firm
Relation
Agency,
who
served
as
the
first
digital
strategist
to
Barack
Obama’s
2008
presidential
campaign.
“As
much
discussion
and
debate
that
there
was
…
I
didn’t
see
any
downtick
in
activity
on
the
platforms
for
political
campaigns.”
Just
as
with
Facebook
then,
Jones
said
that
when
it
comes
to
TikTok,
“if
campaigns
see
a
benefit
to
it,
I
would
be
very
surprised
if
they
stopped
using
it
based
on
political
climate.”
“It’s
a
tough
political
reality,”
said
Eric
Wilson,
senior
vice
president
at
strategic
advisory
firm
Bullpen
Strategy
Group,
who
led
the
digital
team
for
Republican
Sen.
Marco
Rubio’s
2016
presidential
campaign,
“where
good
policy
and
good
politics
conflict.”
A
partisan
divide
in
incentives
The
calculus
can
be
different
for
different
candidates
—
whether
Republican
or
Democrat
or
political
newcomer
versus
incumbent.
Incumbents,
for
instance,
have
an
opportunity
to
grow
TikTok
audiences
over
time
and
leverage
them
during
campaign
season.
But
political
newcomers
may
not
find
TikTok
worthwhile,
says
Jones,
the
former
Obama
digital
strategist.
“If
you
don’t
already
have
that
TikTok
audience
built
up,
it
is
very
hard
to
build
one
up
in
time
to
take
advantage
of
it
before
Election
Day.”
But
more
importantly,
there’s
a
partisan
divide
on
what
candidates
have
to
gain
from
TikTok.
Some
of
this
is
obvious:
TikTok’s
user
base
skews
young,
and
younger
Americans
tend
to
be
more
liberal.
Republicans
can
still
reliably
reach
their
base
by
advertising
on
cable
and
Facebook.
“Facebook
is
still
the
300,
500-pound
gorilla
in
terms
of
audience,”
says
Tyler
Brown,
founder
of
digital
public
affairs
firm
Hadron
Strategies,
who
previously
worked
as
director
of
digital
strategy
at
the
Republican
National
Committee.
But
Democrats,
says
Brown,
who
need
to
turn
out
all
the
voters
they
had
in
2020,
can’t
afford
to
pass
up
on
opportunities.
Wilson
agreed
but
also
said
there’s
some
compelling
evidence
that
Republican
voters
are
on
TikTok.
He
said
that
based
on
a
survey
through
his
Center
for
Campaign
Innovation
in
2022,
“about
one
in
five
MAGA
Republicans
were
using
the
TikTok
platform.”
Campaign
strategists
weigh
their
options
The
reality
is
that
despite
TikTok’s
enormous
reach
and
particular
pull
with
young
users,
it
is
nowhere
near
the
indispensable
tool
that
Meta
has
become
for
political
campaigns.
TikTok’s
prohibition
on
political
advertising
can
make
it
less
attractive
to
campaigns,
who
operate
with
limited
resources
and
generally
prefer
to
stick
to
tried
and
true
methods
they
know
will
result
in
campaign
dollars
or
voter
turnout.
Plus,
having
a
full-fledged
TikTok
strategy
doesn’t
feel
top
priority
to
many
campaign
professionals
when
they
know
many
of
the
same
users
are
still
using
other
platforms,
too.
“While
TikTok
continues
to
have
such
a
high
number
of
users,
the
audiences
that
are
on
TikTok
are
already
very
much
online
on
other
platforms
as
well,”
executive
director
of
progressive
group
Priorities
USA
Danielle
Butterfield
said
in
an
email
to
The
Verge.
Butterfield
cited
the
group’s
internal
research
on
likely
voters
in
battleground
states,
which
found
that
even
among
respondents
who
reported
using
TikTok
more
than
any
other
platform
in
the
last
week,
71
percent
also
used
YouTube,
76
percent
used
Facebook,
62
percent
used
Instagram
and
46
percent
used
Snapchat.
Even
so,
campaign
veterans
shudder
at
the
idea
of
leaving
votes
on
the
table
by
failing
to
take
advantage
of
a
large
platform
available
to
reach
their
base.
“The
signal
it
sends
if
you’re
not
[on
TikTok]
is
bad,
which
is,
you’re
old,
you’re
out
of
touch”
Amy
Kelleher,
senior
director
at
progressive
strategic
communications
agency
Bully
Pulpit
International,
says
that
while
it’s
an
option
for
campaigns
to
leave
access
to
the
TikTok
audience
on
the
table,
“in
most
cases,
it
does
campaigns
a
disservice.”
She
added
that
despite
its
reputation
as
being
popular
with
Gen
Z,
many
other
groups
of
voters
also
show
up
on
the
platform,
including
Millennials
and
Gen
Xers.
TikTok
is
where
Kelleher
says
she
sees
“a
lot
of
initial
focal
points
of
the
election
happening.”
Tusk
said
that
even
if
some
campaigns
don’t
really
care
to
invest
in
TikTok,
“the
signal
it
sends
if
you’re
not
[on
the
platform]
is
bad,
which
is,
you’re
old,
you’re
out
of
touch.”
“The
campaigns
that
I’ve
run,
the
thesis
is:
just
do
everything
you
can
on
every
single
front
you
can
imagine,”
Tusk
said.
“And
that’s
how
you
win.
You
don’t
leave
a
stone
unturned
if
you
don’t
have
to.”
To
Wilson,
the
former
Rubio
digital
operative,
using
TikTok
as
a
campaign
tool
while
opposing
its
ownership
structure
ultimately
isn’t
all
that
different
from
advertising
on
any
other
platform
a
candidate
generally
disagrees
with.
“You
may
not
like
MSNBC,
but
sometimes
you
need
to
run
ads
there,”
Wilson
says.
(On
the
other
hand,
no
one
in
Congress
is
accusing
MSNBC
of
being
a
tool
of
the
Chinese
Communist
Party
or
is
trying
to
ban
government
employees
from
watching
MSNBC.)
In
the
end,
the
mixed
messaging
being
sent
by
voting
one
way
on
TikTok
and
then
continuing
to
campaign
on
the
platform
isn’t
deterring
politicians
from
doing
exactly
that.
“The
upside
of
the
fact
that
opinions
of
Congress
and
Washington
are
so
low
is
that
no
one
expects
them
to
be
anything
other
than
hypocrites,”
reflected
Tusk.
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