From Germany to Portugal to Belgium, mainstream politicians are joining TikTok, wary of ceding the ground to fringe parties who have been particularly successful at using its short video format to reach young voters in particular.

Berlin

European politicians across several countries, including Germany, Portugal, and Belgium, are venturing onto TikTok. This strategic move comes despite existing concerns regarding the platform's security. The decision to join TikTok is driven by a desire not to yield to fringe parties that have effectively utilized the app's short video format to communicate with and engage young voters.



European politicians turn to TikTok despite security fears

Forget the podium and the campaign trail. Ahead of the European elections in June, politicians are increasingly turning to one platform, TikTok. Mainstream politicians hope to attract young voters and fend off the rise of fringe parties, who have successfully exploited the short video app. Many have calculated that the need to reach younger voters outweighs security concerns surrounding the Chinese-owned social media platform. Let's take a closer look. French President Emmanuel Macron joined TikTok in 2020 and now boasts 4 million followers. Irish Prime Minister-in-waiting Simon Harris is another early adopter of TikTok. In Germany, reaching young voters is particularly important, as 16-year-olds can vote in the European elections. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach became the country's first minister to open an account in March. His boss, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, soon followed suit. Among German parties, the far-right Alternative für Germany, or AFD, dominates TikTok. Its top candidate, Maximilian Krah, has more than 40,000 followers. Digital media expert Johannes Hellyer says it's part of the reason why mainstream politicians are now turning to TikTok. All the other democratic parties are kind of panicking at the moment not to leave this important platform and the young demographic, the young voters, to this radical party. That's why a lot of politicians, also ministers like Karl Lauterbach, are now turning to TikTok and they start their own account and try to reach and convince young people with their messages. TikTok has been under increasing scrutiny in the West. Some fear that user data from the app owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. ByteDance has denied using its product for spying, while Beijing has also denied any such intention. In a bid to address the concerns, the company has launched a site to store European users' data in Dublin and hired a third-party security firm to monitor data flows. While Germany's security agencies have warned against using the app, TikTok is becoming harder to ignore. The European Union alone has 142 million users, 20 million of which are in Germany. Lauterbach says he can have reservations about TikTok, but also recognises its effectiveness. To prevent data leaks, he bought a separate phone for TikTok use. In an ideal world, probably German politicians wouldn't want to use TikTok, but since so many young people are using it in Germany, the decision is right, I think, to go there and use it. Otherwise, they will only receive political content from the extremist forces.

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