WASHINGTON (AP) — The Presidency joe biden He showed off his putting during the match. Campaign suspension at public golf courses The moment was captured on TikTok in Michigan last month.
Forced indoors by a rainstorm, he competed for putts with 13-year-old Harley “HJ” Coleman IV on a practice mat. The Coleman family posted a video of the lawsuit on the app, showing Biden holed out and the teenager hitting his own shot back in response, with the caption, “I had to sink the objection.” did.
Network television cameras that typically track the president were located outside.
Biden signed law TikTok could be banned in the U.S. as early as Wednesday while his campaign embraces the platform and tries to work with influencers. The president, already struggling to maintain his previous support from young voters, is now facing criticism from some of the app's most avid users. Researchers say the app is the primary news source for one-third of Americans under 30.
Kahlil Greene, who has more than 650,000 followers and is known on TikTok as a “Gen Z historian,'' said, “I am disappointed in the Biden administration's support for banning TikTok while simultaneously using it for campaigning.'' , there is fundamental hypocrisy.”
“I think this shows that he and his people know the power and necessity of TikTok.”
The Biden campaign has defended its approach and rejected the idea that White House policies are inconsistent with political efforts.
“It would be foolish to ignore all the places people are getting their information about the president,” said Rob Flaherty, who led the White House's digital strategy office and is now deputy director of Biden's re-election campaign.
Flaherty said Biden's team forged relationships with TikTok influencers during the 2020 election and that the platform has only grown in influence since then, “growing as an internet search engine and driving the narrative about the president.” “There is,” he said.
Today's increasingly fragmented media environment requires the Biden campaign to meet voters where they are, with content available to would-be supporters in addition to platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. One of the many places it says is TikTok.
The company produces its own TikTok content, but also relies on everyday users to interact with the president. They include posts from family members who ate fries and other toppings from fast-food chain Cookout during Biden's recent visit to Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as a video of Coleman putting it on. .
TikTok opponents claim ownership by Chinese company part time dance This gives the Chinese government a dangerous amount of influence over the narrative that Americans see, as well as potential access to American user data. China's national security law gives the ruling Communist Party broad discretion over private companies, but the United States has not released any evidence that the Chinese government manipulates the app or forces ByteDance to do its bidding.
Under the law Biden signed on Wednesday, ByteDance must sell the app to U.S. companies within a year or face a national ban. ByteDance claims the law violates the First Amendment and has vowed to sue.
Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican candidate, issued an executive order while in office that sought to ban ByteDance's app if it didn't sell, and has now publicly opposed banning TikTok.
The White House does not have an official TikTok account, and Biden banned the app from most government devices in December 2022. But the Biden campaign also officially joined TikTok on Super Bowl night this year, as the president eschewed traditional game-day TV interviews. Instead, they use the platform to spread political messages.
former white house press secretary jen psaki held a virtual briefing in 2022 with over 20 app influencers to discuss the US approach to Ukraine. The rally was later parodied on “Saturday Night Live.”
There have been many other similar events, including the Influencer Party at the White House last Christmas and the State of the Union Watch Party in March. Biden's recent election $26 million campaign fundraiser At New York's Radio City Music Hall, an influencer happy hour and afterparty was held with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in attendance, where attendees mingled with Biden.
white house press secretary Karine Jean Pierre He said the bill Biden signed “is not a ban.” This concerns our national security. She added that the White House is not saying “we don't want Americans to use TikTok.”
TikTok has 170 million users in the United States; Research published last November About one-third of U.S. adults under 30 regularly get news from TikTok, compared to 14% of adults overall, according to the Pew Research Center.
One survey found that adults under 30 are more likely to oppose a ban on TikTok in the US than US adults overall. AP-NORC poll conducted in January. Nearly half of 18- to 29-year-olds oppose it, compared to 35% of U.S. adults.
About 2 in 10 U.S. adults say they use TikTok at least once a day, including 44% of 18- to 29-year-olds. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 7% said they use TikTok “almost always,” and a further 28% said they use it “several times a day.”
Priorities USA, a major Democratic super PAC, has spent about $1 million this cycle to help fund more than 100 TikTok influencers who are producing pro-Biden content ahead of November. and views these efforts as an extension of traditional organizing and communication efforts.
Even if TikTok is ultimately banned, most of its influencers are likely to continue consuming content on other platforms, particularly YouTube and Instagram, said Daniel Butterfield, executive director of Priorities USA. Stated.
“TikTok users are typically online and in a variety of locations,” said Butterfield, who also served as deputy director of digital advertising for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
Meanwhile, Biden feels his standing among young people is declining. One survey found that about a third of adults under 30 approve of the way he is conducting his job as president. AP-NORC poll conducted in March — a significant decrease from about two-thirds approval when he first took office.
Mr. Green studied history at Yale University, where he served as the school's first black student body president and graduated in 2022. He has attended as an influencer at past White House events, including Juneteenth celebrations, anti-inflation legislation, broader health care policy, and policy-promoting West Wing events. On the green energy package, he met with both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
But about a year ago, Greene said she began posting about Biden's support for the 1994 comprehensive criminal law that activists have long argued led to the mass incarceration of racial minorities. Stated. He also criticized the current Biden administration for its “lack of concrete policies designed for Black Americans.”
Since then, Greene has continued to receive general emails from the Biden administration, but while some “sympathetic, less critical creators” still attend, private events He said he was no longer invited.
Flaherty, the Biden campaign deputy campaign manager, said the campaign pays influencers in certain cases, such as when an influencer's content is used in an ad, and that some content creators working with the campaign said they were concerned about laws that would force the sale. But he doesn't think it will have much of an impact on election day.
“I don't think young voters will vote on TikTok,” Flaherty said. “They're going to vote on issues that are being discussed on TikTok, but also being discussed elsewhere.”
But Greene said there are other areas, particularly young voters' growing dissatisfaction with the Biden administration. Response to the Israel-Hamas war — combined with the TikTok divestment law, created a political problem for Biden.
“I can't overstate how much that will make the protests even worse and exacerbate the grievances that people already have,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Lynley Sanders contributed to this report.
