Biden’s support for potential TikTok ban risks backlash from young voters

President Biden’s reelection campaign must balance the White House’s support for a bill that could ban TikTok from the U.S. while simultaneously harnessing the power of the platform to reach a crucial bloc of young voters.

The president said he would sign a bill that could ultimately ban TikTok from U.S. app stores and web hosting services roughly a month after Biden campaign joined TikTok.

“I think it’s going to be a very fine line they’re going to have to walk,” said Annie Wu Henry, a 28-year-old digital strategist who led Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) digital strategy during his Senate campaign.

“Someone might think, ‘You know, as long as it’s there, it’s fine that they’re using it.’ But some people might find it hypocritical,” she added.

The app, which is owned by the China-based company ByteDance, has become increasingly popular, especially among younger Americans. In addition to funny videos and viral dances, the app has also become a place where more Americans are getting their news, according to a Pew Research Center poll.

About a third of U.S. adults younger than 30 said they regularly got their news from TikTok in 2023, according to a poll released in November. That’s more than three times the 9 percent of adults between 18 and 29 who said the same in 2020, putting TikTok even more in the forefront this election cycle.

As the election nears, however, lawmakers have reignited a debate over the fate of the app.

The House advanced the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would force ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban, in an overwhelming bipartisan 352-65 vote.

In the days leading to and following the House vote, TikTok users flooded content posted by the Biden campaign with pleas to protect the app, rather than the focus of the video itself.

Some comments simply state “keep TikTok,” while others point out this video was “posted on TikTok,” instead of interacting with the content of the video.

Henry said social media is a great resource to glean insight into the public sentiment. On TikTok, there’s a heightened sense of “community, intimacy and authenticity,” and the comment section can become “its own little world,” with reply videos that interact with comments often receiving more traction than the original content, she said.

“That is why it’s used in different ways than some of the other social media platforms. There is the ability for the campaign to really show that they’re listening and hearing and having that rapport with the public and what they’re saying, and what their feedback is around all types of issues, including TikTok,” Henry said.

Supporters of the push cite national security concerns posed by TikTok’s parent company being based in China, which they say exposes the private data of Americans to the Chinese government. The bill advanced after House members received a classified briefing from members of the intelligence community.

TikTok has pushed back on the allegations it poses national security risks, and it is urging the Senate against passing the legislation.

Shoshana Weissmann, director of digital media at the R Street Institute, said the Biden campaign’s use of the app is “super hypocritical” and “undermines his case” for the bill.

“If this were so dangerous from a data acquisition perspective, someone close to the president who uses the TikTok app to upload stuff, that would be a really sensitive position where you really wouldn’t want to have that happen,” Weissmann said.

The Biden campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

When the campaign first joined TikTok last month, campaign officials told The Associated Press they were taking advanced security precautions and incorporating security protocols to ensure safety. But the officials did not detail those measures or provide information about whether they were meant to protect campaign data or voters, the AP reported.

Antonio Arellano, vice president of communications at NextGen America, a left-leaning group focused on mobilizing young voters, dismissed the chance of the fate of TikTok becoming a mobilizing issue for young voters.

Former President Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has come out against the bill Biden backed, despite trying to ban the app while in office. That change came after Trump confirmed he recently met with Jeff Yass, a major GOP donor and investor in TikTok. Trump said Yass did not bring up TikTok during the conversation. 

“I think that young voters have vocalized their key voting priorities, and it’s not TikTok. We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Arellano said, citing issues such as reproductive justice, climate change and gun violence.

He said the “hypocritical” player is the Republican Party “moving so quickly on banning TikTok” while not moving on other critical issues, like gun reform and immigration.

The House voted on the bill less than a week after it was introduced. House Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who voted for the bill, called out the GOP for a “rushed” process on the legislation and pushed for the committee to have a classified briefing before voting to advance the bill.

Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the Newhouse director of the Tufts University Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), said the challenge for the administration is to communicate how it considered the bill so that the influencers and older voters who can influence young voters’ decisions understand it.

“If the influencers in particular, and the general public — people who are slightly older, like me, who are parents — don’t quite understand what’s happening with the ban. … We, as guardians of information to young people, are not able to perform our role either,” she said.

Even for people who have been paying attention, the quick advancement of the bill is adding confusion, Henry said. Unlike other stalled legislative efforts, there hasn’t been an ongoing public push on the issue.

“I think it just feels like it’s kind of been randomly dropped out of the blue,” Henry said.

Kawashima-Ginsberg said it’s unknown how this may impact young voters as an issue.

“We’ve never said, ‘What if your social media gets unavailable to you?’ That’s unimaginable to young people,” she said.

“What I see as a longtime watcher of young people and social media is that they will always find a place to talk and gather and activate and organize. So if TikTok becomes less available or feels less safe and secure to young people, they’ll find another place to go,” she said.

But it will take time for campaigns, which often don’t have young people immersed in youth culture, to catch up and reach them where they are, she said.

“If you are 24 or 25, you are already sort of outside of that youth culture a lot of times,” she added.

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