Biden joins TikTok

“Young people around the country have been waiting for this moment,” said Aaron Parnas, a Gen Z political content creator. “The president is meeting us where we are, and we’ll help him with because of it.”

More than three dozen members of Congress, most of them Democrats, currently operate TikTok accounts.

However, TikTok has come under fire from Republicans, who’ve criticized the app’s ties to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

The White House has often used TikTok to spread messaging and has briefed TikTok creators on things such as the war in Ukraine, the president’s infrastructure initiatives, and the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2022, a group of TikTok creators spent an hour in the oval office in a private meeting with the president. The trip was organized by the Democratic National Committee in an attempt to leverage TikTok’s vast audience to influence the midterms.

TikTok has become a powerful tool for campaigning. In 2020, a collective of hundreds of content creators joined TikTok for Biden, a collaborative effort aimed at getting the president elected. And other lawmakers, such as Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), have made TikTok integral to their campaigning efforts. One of the most popular lawmakers on TikTok is Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson of North Carolina, who has amassed a following of over 2.5 million by posting regular videos about the top news.

“Last election, there was still an open question: Could influencers move the needle on political campaigns?” Daniel Daks, founder of the talent management firm Palette, who helped organize the TikTok creators’ trip to Washington to meet Biden and former president Barack Obama, said last year. “It’s been answered pretty solidly with a yes.”

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