Each of you has surely heard about TikTok and the attraction of the youth to this platform in the last few years. However, what is not talked about enough is the power of these streaming platforms to influence teenagers’ perceptions of the current political situation from all around the globe. Globalization is one essential characteristic of today’s world, with events from one part of the planet reaching, impacting and agitating instantly the other side of the world. However, opinions circulate just as rapidly and TikTok’s ‘purpose’ extends beyond funny dances, making it a persuasive weapon to create political content, influence elections and mobilize social movements.
First of all, apps like TikTok manage to spread content in just a few seconds due to their algorithms, which can personalize content and help the user enter a sphere where it sees only biased content on political issues, through the ‘For You’ page. This makes him create strong beliefs on a subject that, in most cases, are one-sided. One key characteristic of TikTok’s algorithm is the ‘Video Completion Rate’, which prioritizes whether users finish watching the videos. Psychologically speaking, for capitalizing this, the first 2-3 seconds need to grab the attention of the viewer. Although the user’s attention to a certain video stems from a few seconds, this slowly creates a political identity for teenagers. Researchers Richard Fox and Kiana Karimi wrote in a 2023 study published in the Journal of Social Media in Society that “TikTok is ... likely part of a new echo chamber as the algorithms being applied deliver ideologically compatible content to TikTok users”. A teenager’s doubts on a subject can easily turn into strong beliefs, all from content that fueled a certain idea he came to research online. Richard Fox, the author of the study mentioned above, did this experiment with two different TikTok accounts, one of which was used to search “Donald Trump” and “Trump Trial” and the other for searching “Joe Biden” and “Gaza”. A few scrolls away, the first account was showing only anti-immigration posts and Trump videos, while the other was following the complete opposite ideological direction, with pro-Palestine protests and critics of Biden’s capability as a president.
Secondly, besides impacting the political representatives elected by the youth and the ideologies they follow, TikTok influences social movements and information propagation, convincing teenagers quickly about the importance of protests regarding subjects such as abortion, racism and wars. One example is the ‘George Floyd movement’ from 2020 when an African American was killed by the city police during an arrest. This led to serious protests against racism, following the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, which reached people very quickly through TikTok hashtags and shares. Furthermore, regarding the emerging subject of abortion in the US, the youth, pro-feminists and many activists have begun to engage in protests to win back the right of women to access abortion in states in which it has already been taken, after the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. This signifies the educational purpose this platform can have, informing people about what is happening in their country, although based on social media ‘waves’. One more controversial example is that of Pro-Palestine protests, which started to target Israeli corporations like Starbucks after TikTok's activists spread this idea. They are calling for a boycott, accusing Starbucks of supporting the Israeli government through ties with its former CEO, Howard Schultz, who has been linked to pro-Israel efforts. This is a perfect example of how online propagation of information functions quickly and reaches many people, although they weren’t initially part of these movements.
In a nutshell, social media has advantages since people use the power of online networks to take action against situations they consider a threat to democracy. The downside of this immediate spread of information is that manipulation can easily occur for users who chose TikTok as a sole means of information, without understanding all the perspectives and without strong critical thinking. For them, ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ sadly become ‘information’.
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