Divestment or ban law shakes TikTok influencers promoting pro-Biden content

(Bloomberg) — When President Joe Biden returned to the White House after delivering his State of the Union address, 23-year-old TikTok influencer Awa Sanneh joined in the applause alongside administration officials gathered on the balcony from the back of the mansion.

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Biden told the group “how important” social media content is to reaching Gen Z voters, Sanneh recalled, among dozens of creators invited to a party that night.

Just weeks later, Biden signed into law a bill that forces TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., to sell its stake or face a ban in U.S. app stores. This shook social media creators, their campaign took unprecedented action in the courts.

“I’m quite critical of him right now,” said Sanneh, who has attended several administrative briefings and has more than 510,000 followers. “If you really understood the impact, then you would want to keep TikTok.”

Biden’s embrace of the divestment or ban bill exemplifies his efforts to contain what administration officials and lawmakers in both parties see as a growing threat to national security from China. However, he continues to promote his political message on the platform.

None of the influencers who spoke to Bloomberg News said Biden lost the vote. However, the new law will likely alienate younger voters, who have propelled the app to mainstream relevance and are key to Democratic electoral victories. Many are no longer excited about Biden’s re-election.

“Election after election, young people continue to show us that they understand what is at stake right now and that they will vote as if their future depends on it – because it does,” said Seth Schuster, a Biden campaign spokesman.

Kenny Walden, who has 167,000 followers on TikTok and has attended White House events, posted a video on the platform expressing confusion over Biden’s decision to support the bill over privacy and data security concerns.

@2rawtooreal2

My thoughts haven’t changed about the tiktok ban

♬ original sound – 2RawTooReal

“I’m against it, Joe,” said Walden, whose content focuses on encouraging people to vote for Biden. The president is silencing his “front line of defense,” he added, referring to creators like himself.

Opponents of the bill say it threatens free speech and singles out the social media platform over others that collect user data.

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White House officials say their intention is not to ban the operation of TikTok, but to force the app’s Chinese owner to divest. ByteDance’s 270-day deadline extends beyond November, allowing users to continue posting during the election.

“This is about our national security. This is not a cause for concern for Americans who use Tiktok,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “There’s certainly time in the books to see how this plays out.”

Previously: US TikTok ban looms as Biden begins 270-day countdown

ByteDance has made it clear that it has no intention of selling and a protracted legal battle is likely. At the same time, Donald Trump is already using the prospect of a ban to woo younger voters. In a social media post before the bill passed Congress, he blamed Biden for putting a ban in place. This marked a reversal for Trump, who as president signed an order in 2020 banning the app that was later overturned in court.

Biden’s team says his presence on the app is a vital part of a strategy to reach voters in as many arenas as possible. The app’s reach is enormous: More than 170 million Americans have accounts, the company says, and a third of adults under 30 hear from it, according to the Pew Research Center.

Previously: Biden campaign to stay on TikTok despite divestment law

In an unprecedented effort for a presidential administration, Biden’s advisors are in daily contact with social media influencers or their managers. Meanwhile, campaign officials are considering bringing creators to their headquarters, said a person familiar with the deliberations.

The campaign’s partnerships with popular creators are even more important because TikTok prohibits political advertising. Organizing multiple people to promote positive content only trumps Biden’s presence on the app, according to a person with knowledge of the strategy.

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The Biden campaign launched a TikTok account during the Super Bowl in February. He has over 300,000 followers, which pales in comparison to the most popular influencers. The campaign is taking at least one known safety precaution: Employees post to the app from a separate device.

Biden officials were already facing a frightening scenario on TikTok even before he signed the divestment or ban bill. Negative posts about the 81-year-old president are proliferating on the platform, driven by frustration with his handling of the war in Gaza, his age and climate policies.

“It’s very anti-Biden,” Kerry Robertson, a Minneapolis influencer who supports Biden, said of TikTok. “Was always.”

“Even though the algorithm doesn’t show me any kind of pro-Biden content or anything like that, whenever I make these videos, I get a lot of ‘thank you for this,’” she added.

Previously: Primaries show candidates can win on TikTok but lose at the polls

There is no clear evidence that TikTok’s algorithm has a specific political bias, according to Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, an associate professor of communications at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But because it is notoriously opaque, it poses a “problem” for those seeking to understand its growing political influence, said Columbia University associate professor of communications Ioana Literat.

“Look what’s happening on TikTok,” Biden said recently at a fundraiser. “It’s so easy to lie through your teeth and not know what’s true, so we have a lot at stake here.”

It’s difficult to measure the volume of positive or negative sentiment about Biden on TikTok because the company restricts certain data. Users are often isolated in different content universes, where their feeds reflect the topics they interact with most, experts say.

Biden’s team is calculating it can persuade disenchanted voters to consider supporting him, in part through online content.

Ahead of Biden’s fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall in March, which featured comedian Stephen Colbert and former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, some TikTok creators participated in a roundtable with campaign officials about strategy digital, where Biden stopped by to speak to them, an influencer recapped in a video.

@claaaarke

seeing Biden, Obama, Clinton + Queen Latifah in one day? Middle school Clarke is screaming????

♬ Calm (Lofi) – Faneo sound

Finnegan Biden, Biden’s granddaughter, also hosted a happy hour for creators at the nearby Pebble Bar before the fundraiser.

Similar to the Radio City event, behind-the-scenes tours of the White House are excellent social media fodder. “Look, this napkin has the president’s seal on it,” Sanneh said in a video inside a White House bathroom that drew 2.1 million views.

@_awasanneh

Dear Awa-Topia (the name is a work in progress – shut up): Your unwavering support has been the heart of my journey. Your passion fuels my creativity and your dedication brightens my darkest days. Thank you for being the foundation of this incredible life I can live. Thank you for supporting this slightly obnoxious and weird black girl from Texas. Gratitude flows from every corner of my heart to hers.

♬ original sound – Awa

If TikTok disappears, so will influencers’ revenue stream. Harry Sisson, a 21-year-old who has attended official and campaign meetings, is encouraging his 850,000 TikTok followers to watch videos on his YouTube channel, where he has been posting more because of the potential ban.

“There are a lot of creators on TikTok who support them and have done a lot of work for the campaign and the president,” Sisson said in an interview. “I am overall disappointed.”

–With assistance from Alex Barinka.

(Updates with details on opposition to the bill in ninth paragraph)

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