Days before US President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office, millions of American users tried to log into the popular Chinese social media app TikTok, only to find it had gone dark.
TikTok’s ban in the US
American government officials feared TikTok could be used as a vehicle for Chinese espionage. A ban had been put in place in the country unless part of the business was sold to a US buyer.
Trump signalled that on his return to the White House, he would reverse this ban. Within hours, the app came back online, prompting followers with the notification: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
On his inaugural day as 47th President of the USA, on Monday 20 January, Trump signed an executive order to grant TikTok an extension to find a US buyer.
Why was it that the social media platform, which first became famous for its shortform videos of people dancing and lip-syncing to music, was receiving attention from the highest office in the Western world?
New media and the US election
In October, at the tail-end of the US election campaign, then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump took part in a rambling three-hour interview on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. The show is the most listened-to podcast on the streaming platform Spotify.
Its eponymous host began his career as a sports commentator and a comedian. Rogan’s politics do not neatly sit anywhere on the political spectrum, although he might be considered a libertarian. He espouses liberal views in relation to same-sex marriage and the legalisation of recreational drug use. Equally, he has expressed sympathies toward Russia and endorsed multiple right wing American presidential candidates.
His interview of Trump aired a series of false claims and conspiracies, including the debunked claim that the 2022 US election was rigged, supposedly causing Trump to lose to Joe Biden.
This is not the first time Rogan has come under fire for spreading misinformation; he has been criticised for his anti-vaccination stance during the Covid-19 pandemic and for hosting guests like climate change sceptic Jordan Peterson.
On the other side of the pond, Netflix’s viewership results for the last quarter of 2024 showed that the online streaming platform had overtaken BBC One, previously the UK’s most popular TV service.
Is traditional media losing its prestige? Or has the sheen of the establishment become dull?
According to Dr Steven Buckley, Lecturer in Media Digital Sociology, many young Americans have become politically disenfranchised. The appeal of modern media – like podcasts – is that young listeners feel “their views are more likely to be heard and represented.”
Traditional media vs influencers vs citizen journalists
Podcasts and other social media platforms, like TikTok, are not regulated in the same way that traditional media channels are.
Whereas the role of a journalist is to inform the public, sociologist Dr Stephanie Alice Baker reminds us that the goal of influencers is to promote.
“Even if they are not posting for financial gain, influencers might be looking for clout, or political or social gain,” Dr Baker explains.
Herein lies the threat. In the attention economy, eyeballs equal money.
Influencers earn incomes through paid partnerships with brands they advertise in their videos, by selling products which they link to in their bios, or from advertisements placed on the social media platforms.
Trust in traditional Western media is hitting record lows.
In the UK, a 2024 survey by the Edelman Trust Barometer found only 31 per cent of UK respondents trusted the media. A Gallup survey in the US yielded similar results, with 36 per cent of respondents reporting no trust at all in the media.
Scandals – such as the infamous Partygate which saw Prime Minister Johnson breaking his own Covid-19 lockdown rules – have eroded citizens’ confidence in traditional institutions like government and healthcare. This trend is consistent across both sides of the Atlantic.
For some, choosing social media over traditional news appeals to them because they can find content creators who are everyday people. These content creators might therefore appear independent of government influence and therefore more trustworthy.
Many content creators use their platforms to share snippets of their lives, whether that be going through cancer treatment or of living in war zones like Gaza.
This harkens back to a tradition of gonzo journalism or citizen journalism in which members of the general public become part of the media sector by sharing their own experiences of current events. The use of TikTok in Gaza, for example, might remind some of the rise of X (then Twitter) during the Arab Spring between 2010 and 2012.
Others still are disturbed by media biases in traditional media. Professor Suzanne Franks noted the lack of coverage of former PM Sunak leaving D-Day commemorations early in traditionally Conservative-backing newspapers, and Dr Zahera Harb argued much of British media coverage of war in Israel and Gaza favoured Israeli voices.
From online health communities to political radicalisation
Spreading fear and misinformation is financially profitable for content creators.
In an ethnographic study, Dr Baker found that as many as 81 per cent of cancer cures touted by content creators on TikTok were fake.
These cancer cure videos became a gateway to more extreme and conspiratorial content, which is particularly alarming for Gen Z viewers who use the platform as a search engine.
Dr Baker found that the platform’s algorithm encouraged influencers to post increasingly salacious content to keep their viewers’ attention. The endless scroll feature of TikTok renders users susceptible to radicalisation.
Viewers go through a gradual process of socialisation by watching increasingly extreme videos recommended by the platform’s algorithm.
For populists like Trump, riding the wave of online support only serves to further boost his profile and popularity, with little pushback.