Direct News: The Biden campaign team has also entered the social media TikTok and opened an account. Mr. Guan, what are your observations on this?
Special Commentator Guan Yao: Obviously, this is a big move launched by the Biden campaign team to attract the new generation of Americans, especially young voters, and is part of his campaign strategy. It should be said that we are now in the early stages of an election year, facing many uncertainties, and there are still many unknowns about the direction of the election campaign. But at least at the moment, the situation is quite unfavorable to the sitting president. Biden is already trailing his lawsuit-ridden nemesis Trump in many battleground state polls. The phrase "an old man with a bad memory" in the newly declassified prosecutor's report set off the so-called "aging" storm and made Biden look disgraced. A latest headline from "The Atlantic Monthly" expresses the mainstream sentiment in American society today: can joe biden squash concerns about his age? Can Biden quell outsiders' concerns about his age? The "Washington Post" has publicly complained before that the Democratic Party lacks a "Plan B" in the election campaign. Therefore, the Biden camp urgently needs to make changes at this time. Judging from the launch time and content release of
, it is obvious that the Biden campaign team regards opening a tiktok account as a major event, and it is carefully designed and has a full online feel. Biden deliberately chose to release his official announcement during the commercial break between the Super Bowl on Sunday night. The "Super Bowl" finals, together with the halftime entertainment performances, and even the advertisements released during the TV broadcast, this time period is equivalent to the American Spring Festival Gala, and it is the number one attention platform. This 27-second ad featuring Biden himself answering Super Bowl questions has also become the first short video released by Biden’s tiktok account “bidenhq”. On the first day of its launch on Monday, it received 6 million views. The current number of views is 6.57 million. On the first day that Biden appeared on TikTok, the account posted a total of four short videos, but the other three did not have "100,000+" views, and attracted 67,000 fans on the first day. It should be said that the numbers on the first day were unsatisfactory and tepid. In comparison, Biden has 38 million followers on social media x, the predecessor of Twitter, which is a huge disparity. Even on the TikTok platform, Democratic Internet celebrity Representative Jeff Jackson has 2.5 million fans. The Biden team is under great pressure to attract fans on the TikTok platform, and the road is long and difficult.
But the Biden campaign doesn't seem to care about the gains and losses on the first day of the show, or at least it seems so. Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager, issued a statement yesterday saying that Biden's tiktok debut received more than 5 million views, and the number of views is still rising, testifying to our continued efforts to find innovative ways to reach voters' commitment and success. So in my opinion, the Biden campaign team is indeed placing the TikTok platform at the core of its vote-getting strategy. This is actually in line with Biden's governing thinking.
Direct News: Why would Biden put TikTok at the core of his vote-canvassing strategy?
Special commentator Guan Yao: According to a statistics from the "American President" project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, three years before the president took office, Obama Trump has held 66 press conferences, Trump has held 52, and Biden has the lowest record of holding 33 press conferences. In this regard, the explanation given by White House spokeswoman Pierre yesterday also cited the entry into TikTok, saying that because Biden continues to explore new media methods, there are fewer press conferences. The Washington Post even reported before that Biden is more willing to accept and arrange interviews with social media influencers than traditional media, because the latter generally do not ask tough and challenging questions, and the content is easier to control. In vertical fields Reaching specific audiences is also guaranteed.
Why is tiktok placed at the core? The "Washington Post" statement is very clear. Because of its huge user base, TikTok has become a powerful election aid tool. The number of TikTok users in the United States will reach 150 million in 2022. Its CEO Zhou Suizi confirmed during a hearing on Capitol Hill last month that the latest number of users has reached 170 million. What does this mean? The total population of the United States is only 330 million, accounting for more than half. Because the user base is younger, it is no exaggeration to say that TikTok has almost 100% coverage among American teenagers. In fact, Biden personally experienced the help of TikTok during the last election. Hundreds of short video bloggers collectively settled on TikTok, which was considered a key to Biden's victory.According to the "Washington Post", during the midterm elections two years ago, the White House designed a campaign to support the election, inviting 10 TikTok influencers with a total of more than 67 million fans to visit Washington, and even brought in former President Obama to explain to them In the context of his election, Biden himself received these internet celebrities for an hour at the White House.
Biden chose to enter TikTok at the "American Spring Festival Gala", but his planning and preparation took longer and was more meticulous. The Democratic Party reviewed the last general election two years ago and has formulated a so-called re-election strategy. It particularly emphasized the need to significantly increase platform investment and promotion efforts. It must use social media platforms such as TikTok and WhatsApp that prohibit political advertising to encourage Democratic supporters to send messages to their online friends. Forward promotion. Just last month, the Biden campaign team officially announced that it is recruiting a digital collaboration director. His main responsibility is to cooperate with content bloggers on TikTok and other social platforms to amplify the effect of Biden's speech and reach core constituencies. Danile Dax, the founder of palette, a consulting company that helped coordinate the trip to Washington for TikTok influencers, analyzed it this way. If we say that during the last election, everyone still had questions about it: Can influencers influence political elections? So now, the answer is obvious: yes.
Direct News: Will the pressure on TikTok in the United States ease?
special commentator Guan Yao: must emphasize this fact. When American and Western media, especially American mainstream media, report Biden’s entry into TikTok, they will add another half sentence to the title to emphasize the so-called “security concerns”. This actually indicates that Therefore, TikTok’s operating pressure in the United States will not be substantially alleviated. In the context of political polarization and intensifying disputes between the two parties during the US election year, it is not ruled out that this kind of unwarranted political suppression will intensify. We saw that TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi and other social media tycoons went to Capitol Hill for a hearing last month, but he was the only one singled out by anti-China Republican lawmakers for humiliating cross-examination. This was a preview of this bottomless suppression.
It should be said that President Biden’s entry into TikTok is itself a rebellion against his policy stance. Two years ago, Biden signed an executive order stipulating that 4.5 million federal government employees are not allowed to use TikTok on government agency equipment on the grounds of so-called national security. Government agency equipment must uninstall TikTok. So, does Biden himself count as a government official? employee?
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, cfius, has already established regulations requiring TikTok’s foreign shareholders, more specifically, TikTok’s Chinese operator, to withdraw their shares. Yesterday, someone also asked about this, and a White House spokesperson responded that the White House is still evaluating the cfius regulations.
But in line with the expression of the Internet celebrity, he said no with his mouth, but his body was very honest. I think Biden's latest action explains everything. Americans also like to say, if you can't beat it, join it. Previously, US media even reported that the Democratic Party had already issued an internal warning to Biden that excessive suppression of TikTok might affect the Democratic Party's election campaign layout.
In this sense, tiktok has withstood the pressure to do a good job, operate with sustained, stable, high-quality innovation, and serve global customers including American users. This is its most effective tool to resist all kinds of unwarranted political smear and suppression. It is also the capital to change one’s life against the odds. This is how tiktok has come through in the past, and it will continue to prove this tomorrow.
Author丨Guan Yao, special commentator of Shenzhen TV's "Live Broadcast of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan"
Editor丨Guo Jinchi, Chief Editor of Shenzhen TV Direct News
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