President Bidens 2024 marketing campaign joined TikTok on Tremendous Bowl Sunday, an effort to attach with younger voters forward of the November presidential election. The transfer comes regardless of Bidens earlier agency stance in opposition to the app and its potential nationwide safety considerations.
The account, @Bidenhq, will likely be run by Bidens marketing campaign employees alongside different accounts on X, Threads, Fb, and Reality Social, based on marketing campaign advisers. On Monday, the account already had greater than 51,000 followers, and Bidens first video greater than half one million.
“The marketing campaign will proceed assembly voters the place they’re, innovating to create content material that can resonate with crucial audiences and the core constituencies that make up the Presidents various and broad coalition of voters,” advisers stated in an announcement. Biden marketing campaign advisers additionally stated they “are taking superior security precautions round our units and incorporating a complicated safety protocol to make sure safety.”
Learn extra: Why the U.S. and Different Nations Wish to Ban or Limit TikTok
The app, owned by the Chinese language firm ByteDance, has confronted scrutiny in Congress over improper information use, provided that Chinese language regulation requires China’s corporations to share data with the federal government. (TikTok has denied sharing U.S. information with the Chinese language authorities.)
The Biden Administrations coverage has beforehand been crucial of TikTok. In late 2022, the President signed laws blocking using the app on authorities units. Final yr, the administration threatened to ban TikTok within the U.S. if ByteDance didn’t promote its stake in TikTok to an American firm.
However his staff has additionally turned to creators on the app to achieve youthful audiences, even inviting a gaggle of creators to the White Home in 2022 for a personal assembly with the President. TikTokers have been briefed by the administration on every little thing from the conflict in Ukraine to pupil debt aid within the hopes of spreading the administrations coverage data with the rising inhabitants of customers who flip to the platform for information.
The app proved to be a robust drive for mobilizing younger voters within the 2020 Presidential election. A survey printed final March discovered that 20% of Gen Z obtained details about political points from TikTok in 2022.
In his first video, captioned lol hey guys, a staffer requested the President varied rapid-fire questions associated to the Tremendous Bowl, equivalent to which staff he was supporting for the Tremendous Bowl, and which of the 2 Kelce brothers was his favourite.
On the finish, he was requested to decide on between himself and former President Donald Trump.
Are you kidding? he stated. Biden.
