Tik Tok Gets Political
Kenny Ling '21 Managing Editor
TikTok, an ever-growing social media app, has evolved from viral dances and comedic creativity to a prominent political platform. With the arrival of politics comes controversies between ideologies and party affiliations.The app has become a venue for political activism and ideological formation. Although politics in TikTok spark meaningful discussions, they have overthrown the main purpose of the app: Engaging and original content.
In June, President Trump’s campaign expected an enormous crowd at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The campaign received over a million ticket requests to attend the rally, causing many planned events outside of the rally to be cancelled in order for the projected overflow crowd to attend. The event resulted in only 6,200 attendees at the rally, a huge disappointment for the Trump campaign. The reason for the difference between ticket requests and attendees is teenage TikTok users who registered hundreds of thousands of tickets for the rally as a prank. The idea to sign up and not attend spread all throughout the social media app. Such a “prank” is not acceptable, but there were little to no repercussions to address this wrongdoing against the President of the United States.
Students agree that the politicization of the platform is not a welcome change. “I miss old TikTok. Every time I go on my ‘For You’ page there’s always something about Biden or Trump and which one is better,” says Tiffany Rodriguez, a senior at Howard and TikTok star. She also believes politics has caused a problem in TikTok’s algorithm since most posts displaying a political bias also have critical feedback in each comment section. Alexander Dean, a junior at Howard, has been a TikTok user for nearly two years. “Teenagers swear they know what they are talking about even though most of these political TikTokers aren’t even old enough to vote. They act like they know everything, yet aren’t fully educated.”
Political TikTok has created a divide for many users, limiting interaction throughout the app. With this ideological split, many users are often limited to viewing only one side of the spectrum as the algorithm is specific to each user — the more a user interacts with videos that have certain audios, hashtags, or keywords, the more they will appear on the feed. There's also a "not interested" button to press to see less of a certain kind of content, but this feature should be more accessible to users. Interest in TikTok has decreased and will continue to do so if the app remains a large political platform.
In June, President Trump’s campaign expected an enormous crowd at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The campaign received over a million ticket requests to attend the rally, causing many planned events outside of the rally to be cancelled in order for the projected overflow crowd to attend. The event resulted in only 6,200 attendees at the rally, a huge disappointment for the Trump campaign. The reason for the difference between ticket requests and attendees is teenage TikTok users who registered hundreds of thousands of tickets for the rally as a prank. The idea to sign up and not attend spread all throughout the social media app. Such a “prank” is not acceptable, but there were little to no repercussions to address this wrongdoing against the President of the United States.
Students agree that the politicization of the platform is not a welcome change. “I miss old TikTok. Every time I go on my ‘For You’ page there’s always something about Biden or Trump and which one is better,” says Tiffany Rodriguez, a senior at Howard and TikTok star. She also believes politics has caused a problem in TikTok’s algorithm since most posts displaying a political bias also have critical feedback in each comment section. Alexander Dean, a junior at Howard, has been a TikTok user for nearly two years. “Teenagers swear they know what they are talking about even though most of these political TikTokers aren’t even old enough to vote. They act like they know everything, yet aren’t fully educated.”
Political TikTok has created a divide for many users, limiting interaction throughout the app. With this ideological split, many users are often limited to viewing only one side of the spectrum as the algorithm is specific to each user — the more a user interacts with videos that have certain audios, hashtags, or keywords, the more they will appear on the feed. There's also a "not interested" button to press to see less of a certain kind of content, but this feature should be more accessible to users. Interest in TikTok has decreased and will continue to do so if the app remains a large political platform.