A few weeks ago were the national elections in the Netherlands, with all the corresponding campaigning and preparations from the parties in all media. It was impossible to miss the elections in all media, and also on my social media, especially TikTok, which was new for me. This was the first time during elections that I experienced this (except for the elections in March, but that feels like it was yesterday too). It started with this one particular TikTok, which I have seen many times since then. It is this video on the TikTok of Thiery Baudet.
Thierry Baudet is a right-wing politician from the party Forum Voor Democratie, and he is one of the politicians that puts the most work into TikTok campaign (1). I found this video quite odd, as at first I did not realize that this was a video posted by Baudet himself. In this video, Baudet plays into a TikTok trend where people deepfake the voices of famous people into playing a video game. Baudet in this video is playing Minecraft, which seems funny, but it has a clear political message. He talks about keeping the creepers out, which is a clear reference to immigrants, where Baudet is very negative about in his political program. He also uses it to mock his contestants of the VVD. I do not sympathize with the points of Thierry Baudet, but I did find the video quite funny. However, after watching this video, I saw more and more TikTok’s and Reels from Baudet and his party, some also way more political then the “funny” Minecraft video I saw. This however had me wondering if this new way of campaigning actually works, as me myself found myself taking this politician less serious.
Does this work?
Looking at the TikTok account of Thierry Baudet (2), he has a huge variety of videos. It goes from Minecraft videos to videos where he goes to the gym with a personal trainer. He has many videos talking about different political subjects very shortly (like the LHGBTQI+ community, energy prices and immigrants), and also videos where he just meets people. I think this variety of videos, and how easy it is to make a TikTok video, allows him to reach a lot of different communities, very easily.
That this has appealed to some communities has shown among young Muslims and people with a migration background, when he made quite some videos that targeted this community, especially aiming at the more conservative people in this community. This has shown in an increase in people that vote for Baudet, even though he has spoken negatively about migration and Muslim people in the past (3). I have even seen a video of a man from this group that says he voted for Baudet, because of his TikTok (4).
This TikTok campaign has also shown to be effective among young people, especially children. The videos on TikTok were quite popular among this group. Very interesting was the result of the Student Elections, the elections that is held among high school students a few weeks prior to the real elections. In this election the FVD came in as second biggest party, while in normal elections they only got a very small percentage of the votes (5).
Is this allowed?
Then the question raised to me: Is this even allowed? The answer is no. TikTok does not allow politicians to advertise on it’s platform. In fact, in March Baudet even received a ban from TikTok on his account for doing this (6). He also paid for extra engagement to his account, which is also illegal. There also are quite some parties that would like to prohibit campaign on TikTok, or even to completely prohibit social media on phones of politicians, because of safety reasons (7). Baudet has now find a way to bypass these bans from TikTok, so he can keep on making videos in which he directly encourages people to vote for his party. I am not sure what has changed why he can now do this.
References:
- https://www.leidschdagblad.nl/cnt/dmf20230314_52386018?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic
- https://www.tiktok.com/@thierry_baudet
- https://nos.nl/artikel/2468047-hoe-baudets-campagne-gericht-lijkt-op-jonge-moslims-en-waarom-die-werkt
- https://nos.nl/video/2468048-ik-heb-op-thierry-baudet-gestemd-door-tiktok
- https://stem.scholierenverkiezingen.nl/uitslagen/er/2
- https://www.bnnvara.nl/joop/artikelen/thierry-baudet-permanent-verbannen-van-tiktok-vanwege-oneerlijke-verkiezingscampagne
- https://www.leidschdagblad.nl/cnt/dmf20230314_52386018?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic
I believe that TikTok is a great source to make some advertising about anything, even for politics. It’s a new way to promote yourself as everyone is watching it.
However, after reading your post I realized it’s illegal for politicians to do so. I don’t agree with this, I think it should be legal and we must be the ones choosing the type of content we want to consume, or our children.
Ways are changing all the time and we get use to the new eras or we are lost for the new present we live in.
I completely agree with this. I do think it’s a great way to make people interested in politics on a younger age, and reach a larger range of people. It however also is really easy to spread fake and biased info on TikTok, so I do think it should be monitored.
hi,
I was very interested in your post! I little while ago I also wrote about the elections and how politicians were on tiktok. I didn’t actually know it was illegal to promote political parties on tiktok. I don’t really agree with that rule because as the comment before me said, times are changing. I do however believe that there should be clear guidelines as to what the politicians can promote. I don’t think they should promote that baudet is playing video games which can be considered fun so thats why they should vote for him.
I think the effect of these campaigning TikTok’s on younger generations is something other parties really underestimate. Before reading it in your text, it reminded me of the outcome of student elections, in which he did very well. I was so amazed hearing that, but seeing the effort he puts into connection with the “future” of voting it might not be so crazy after all.
Appealing to the younger generations has always been a key political strategy, I feel like it was only a matter of time before tiktok would become an integral medium in dissemination of political ideologies. Just the fact that Thierry is simply engaging with this platform would have undoubtedly already gathered favor from younger people. It is good tiktok doesn’t allow politicians on their platform, but politically neutral social media platforms don’t exist. Pretending that the digital space within which a platform operates is independent of politics, would only increase tensions. Besides, tiktok is not consistent in their aim of maintaining “political neutrality”. For example, #trump and variations on it were fine, yet tiktok administrators admitted censoring and restricting several LGBTQ+ hashtags such as #gay, #lesbian, and #transgender. Tiktok itself has gained more political relevance now than ever. Seeing politicians on tiktok therefore was totally not a surprise for me.
Thank you for posting this; I had heard of this phenomenon, but as someone who doesn’t have TikTok most of the absurdity passed by me. I do also have to wonder; why use this strategy? Young people, the majority of TikToks userbase cannot vote. Is he trying to condition them into voting for him later when they become adults? If so, this sounds a little like brainwashing, and definitely should be taken more seriously.